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Unlucky ferry runs into more problems - this time in the form of land
By adamg on Wed, 08/27/2014 - 10:45pm
A Boston-to-Lynn ferry ran aground off Nahant shortly before 8 p.m., according to Steve Deveau, one of the passengers aboard it.
Deveau reports the ferry was the Cetacea, the same ship whose passengers spent a night in the harbor last month when its propeller became entangled in a cable at an LNG offloading area off Nahant.
Deveau says unlike that ill-fated trip, he and his fellow passengers were offloaded around 10 p.m.
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Comments
Just Fourteen Lynnferry Passengers On A Day Like This?!!
Instead of the Blue Line Extension, or even just improved feeder bus service from Wonderland to Lynn, the Lynnmayor and other Lynnofficials have championed this Lynnferry to be the economic salvation of downtown Lynn.
They spent a huge amount of public funds to construct docking facilities, a free parking lot, and also just to run the service. It duplicates the existing Commuter Rail from Lynn to Boston but with an extremely limited schedule, while siphoning off MBTA revenue. (but it does sell alcohol)
So here, on a warm summer evening when you'd think there'd be the highest number of people choosing to commute by ferry, there are only fourteen passengers!
Channel 7 reported that when the passengers finally did arrive in Lynn they were all in good spirits because they'd been served free food and drinks during the delay. I wish the Commuter Rail passengers and other commuters inconvenienced by the Ⓣ today received similar refreshments during their delays!
That stupidity is a saving grace for Lynn.
If they pushed for a real system like a Blue Line extension, the value of the city would rise and kill the cheapness that makes it a haven for people driven out of Boston.
So be sure to give this mayor lots of attaboys, keep him in office and be careful of what you wish for. He also seems to be an idiot about extending the Bikeway from Malden.
the mayor of Lynn is a she
Her name is Judith Kennedy. And yes, she doesn't seem to favor the bike path coming to her city, even though it's finished in Everett, Malden, and Saugus, and will soon be connected through Revere as well. (not sure exactly when, but certainly by this time next year)
Good gotcha there.
Shows how much attention I pay to who the mayors are. I probably confused it with Lawrence.
I do remember the Salem mayor is a woman.
BostonUrbex mentioned the Revere section is wrapping up. They were having some mud problems in the stretch where it skirts the marsh. I'll probably get the Lynn parts covered soon in my ongoing exploration of abandoned rail lines.
I now have the Central Massachusetts line covered from Somerville to Wayland and it's all at my you tube channel. http://youtu.be/ZH5bsfLCDlE
Here's a look at said docking facility as seen from Nahant. https://flic.kr/p/oWFGa2
And this may be a channel marker, https://flic.kr/p/oWFJKn , as someone with a better knowledge of nautical stuff can verify or refute.
I like how Revere and Boston ended up juxtaposed.
Except Lynn is nowhere near Lawrence.
And Lawrence has a new mayor who is doing quite well.
Resist the urge to weigh in on topics you know nothing about.
Yes I was in Lawrence on Tuesday.
Good to know about its new Mayor.
Progress, or lack thereof
The trail seems to have dried out. I believe most of the mud issues was from freshly disturbed land, divots left by machinery, etc. The rails and ties are all gone, but the path is still unsuitable for anything but walking and mountain bikes. I haven't noticed any work in weeks. It is/was supposed to be graded out and suitable to ride by the fall, I believe, and the cherry: topped with crushed stone/stone dust in the spring. Not sure what they're waiting for to grade it.
I learned a bit about the process from a site visit
..to Newton last week.
That's the 'prep' phase. The finish comes when they put down the rock dust surface.
This is the top of the Newton project near the National Lumber yard on Easy Street.
https://flic.kr/p/oQ4m4Q
The sections of the Wayside Rail Trail that I scouted last year in Waltham were similar.
It is probably some budgeting/funding pause. I also noticed huge stockpiles of rock dust in several areas near trail projects. There is one in Everett near where the tracks pass under the Revere Beach Parkway.
http://goo.gl/maps/sOFX9
Gravel in Everett
That is gravel in Everett -- or, more specifically, ballast. The MBTA stores ballast there, loads it up into rail hoppers, and will deposit it along the tracks wherever it is needed or whenever they're working on a track bed. It is unclear if that will have to be moved to another MBTA property to get the path extended towards Charlestown, or if a work-around will be ironed out.
There's another storage point over by Alewife.
Similarly located under an overpass where the parkway crosses the Fitchburg line.
Here's an infographic costing post from the Needham trail planning.
http://www.baycolonyrailtrail.org/node/386
On a day like this? It's late August.
I'd be surprised if this isn't the slowest non-holiday commuting week of the year. Have you been to downtown or Back Bay? It's all foreign tourists.
So here, on a warm summer
Maybe they didn't want to risk spending the night at sea.
It was 8 pm. Would you
It was 8 pm. Would you expect it to be full?
Me? Certainly Not! It's The Lynnleaders Who Expect It To Be Used
How?!?
How did this happen? Why don't they look at the GPS, maybe the Capt. was taking a bathroom break?
The Lynnharbor Is Actually Very Shallow
Although it looks like you'd have a straight path coming in from Boston, the boats actually have to go way out to Natant, and then follow a very narrow Lynnchannel that runs parallel and close to the causeway. The tide was out, so the Lynnharbor was more shallow and the Lynnchannel was more narrow than at other times of the day. If the ferry strayed even slightly off the Lynnchannel, it could easily run aground.
With all of the toxic substances dumped by GE and many other Lynndustries over the past couple of centuries, dredging the Lynnharbor to create a wider channel is neither environmentally nor economically practical.
It doesn't look like a straight path coming in from Boston
Just look at a chart and you will see that, I am in the area quite frequently. Knowing it is low tide, you would think the crew would be paying better attention. You really shouldn't stray even slightly from the channel in that area, bc you will run aground. I'm sure the crew on this commuter run wasn't brand new, this was totally avoidable.
Looking at a chart.....
That's a tricky channel. Not making excuses, but there's not much wiggle room.
There really isn't a lot of
There really isn't a lot of room, one of the factors the Capt. needs to consider. This should not have happened... Bottom line. There are licensed Capts. running these boats.
With only 14 ppl on board, they probably could have used one of the smaller vessels in the fleet.
Unlucky?
Unlucky, or just a competence problem? Both times the problem was the boat being put where it should not have been.
No Excuses!
The captain is paid and trained to avoid stuff like this. It is his job.
Channel markers are there for a reason. They are the highways of the ocean. Running aground is the same as a cab driver driving down the wrong side of the highway.
No excuse will cut it.
Just curious
Was the Cetacea renamed at some point? That's usually a good way to jinx a boat.
More likely
The captain didn't repost a lame picture on Facebook and a miracle didn't happen some place and this was his karma.
Or the captain refused
to take the ice bucket challenge.