SEATTLE — North Carolina Department of Transportation Ferry Division is replacing its 22-year-old M/V Thomas A. Baum Hatteras-class ferry with a larger ferry in early 2019.
Elliott Bay Design Group of Seattle announced Monday that the employee-owned company has designed for NCDOT Ferry Division a new, river class vehicle ferry that will be 183 feet long and have room for 38 regular-sized vehicles, 12 more vehicles than the Thomas A. Baum ferry.
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Anticipated to be delivered March 1, 2019, the vessel will be built at Bollinger Shipyards of Lockport, Louisiana.
“This is a great first step in phasing out our smaller boats and replacing them with larger ones,” Ferry Division Director, Harold Thomas, said in the press release. “Eventually it will allow us to increase our capacity with the same number of scheduled trips.”
Upon construction, the new vessel will be the first new car ferry for the Ferry Division since the 2012 M/V Sea Level, also designed by Elliott Bay Design Group.
