They called it the boat that wouldn't float, but that wasn't exactly true.

On water, The Spirit of Ontario, popularly known as The Breeze, did just fine. It carried 140,000 passengers between Toronto and Rochester, N.Y., for 80 days last summer in half the time it takes to drive the 275-kilometre route between the two cities.

On paper, however, the five-storey, 90-km/h catamaran proved to be a dud, foundering in enough red ink that a U.S. federal judge impounded it last September.

The bad-luck vessel had experienced everything from crashing into a New York city dock during its initial delivery from Australia to problems with U.S. Customs, which at first severely cut projected revenue by forbidding it to carry commercial trucks.

Jamie Germano, Rochester Democrat and Chronicle
The Spirit of Ontario enters the Port of Rochester last April.

Shortly after the impounding, The Breeze's private, predominantly Australian owner, Canadian American Transportation Services (CATS), declared bankruptcy and the boat has sat idle ever since.

But the ferry is slated to resume carrying passengers in the not-so-distant future. The only question is where.

The answer depends on the results of what promises to be a widely watched auction. Scheduled to take place Feb. 28 in Rochester, it was to consign all of CATS' assets to the highest bidder. At press time, there were two top contenders.

One was the City of Rochester, backed by a promise of a $40-million US line of credit from the Australian Export Finance and Insurance Corp.

A spokesperson for Rochester Mayor William Johnson Jr. said that the city has never given up hope that the concept of carrying up to 770 passengers and 220 cars per voyage will prove to be not only beneficial regionally, but a catalyst in encouraging high-speed ferry service elsewhere.

Rochester's chief competition is Istanbul Fast Ferries Co., a Turkish metropolitan authority that already owns and operates several of The Breeze's companion vessels, all of which were built by Austal Ltd. of Perth, Australia. Ahmet Paksoy, general manager of Istanbul Fast Ferries, recently toured the vessel, later telling reporters that a bid by his company "is a possibility."

Other competitors may show up at the auction, which has been widely advertised in international shipping publications.

The luxurious ferry, which boasts two movie theatres, a bar, a fast-food bistro and duty-free shopping, originally cost about $42.5 million. A new vessel with as much technological sophistication today would reportedly cost more than $50 million. The Breeze is expected to go for about $30 million.

A New York judge has agreed that Rochester does not need to make a deposit to bid at the auction because it has already invested so much money in the project. The minimum bid is $22.5 million and a 10-per-cent deposit is required.

(Terry Poulton can be reached at poulton@businessedge.ca)