ROCKLAND — The Capt. Frank E. Thompson is currently out of commission, waiting for a spot at the shipyard, where it will get repairs made to its rudder, and a new propeller installed — not major work, but enough to warrant a hauling out and temporary shifting around of Maine’s Penobscot Bay ferry fleet. 

While the Thompson gets repaired, the Everett Libby — normally used these days only for the periodic Matinicus trips — will fill in the Vinalhaven run, said Maine State Ferry Service Rockland Port Captain Dan McNichol. The Gov. Curtis is temporarily filling in for the Lincolnville-Islesboro run while the Margaret Chase Smith goes in for her annual maintenance, which requires three to five weeks of work.

Damage to the Thompson included a few bent propeller blades, said McNichol. The cost of the damage has yet to be determined.

The channel running from the Ferry Terminal at Lermond Cove is 11 feet deep at mean low tide and the ferry, the Capt. E. Frank Thompson, draws nine feet. When the vessel touched bottom — or something on the channel’s bottom — in late March, the logical question followed: Is the passage dredged to enough depth?

The Thompson was leaving the south pen at the Rockland ferry terminal, heading for Vinalhaven, and transiting through the first set of navigational buoys when she touched bottom on the north side of the channel, said McNichol.

He is not sure what the ferry hit, and the the Maine Ferry Service called in a diver to investigate. 

The U.S. Coast Guard is also investigating the incident. That federal agency is responsible for maintaining aids to navigation in harbors, and the channel from the ferry terminal to Penobscot Bay is marked with nuns and cans. The Rockland aids to navigation team is stationed in Southwest Harbor, said McNichol.

“It definitely touched bottom,” said McNichol. “It’s a tight channel.”

It was low tide when the Thompson left the pen for Vinalhaven.

The diver, he said, found the buoy’s chain piled up on ledge to the north, and the buoy on top of that. When the diver stood up on the ledge, it was not in deep water: 

“He stood up on it and the water was up to his chest,” said McNichol.

Since the incident, the Coast Guard has dragged the buoy into place.

“That’s not to say it was off-station,” he said. “They deemed it on-station.”

McNichol said : “I don't believe the Thompson was that far north. I believe the Thompson was in the channel.”

The channel is maintained by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

McNichol said the northern edge of the channel is ledge. The channel itself is hard-bottomed, with gravel and good-sized rubble and rock.

“It’s a pretty hard bottom,” he said. “Like hitting gravel.”

He said the Coast Guard will try to determine if there was any shoaling of the Thompson, or if there were any hazards that had landed in the channel.

The Thompson is Maine’s newest ferry, and at 154 feet in length, it is the second largest of the fleet. The ferry was was launched two years ago April 20, and has been serving the Vinalhaven-Rockland run.

At 494 tons, the Captain E. Frank Thompson can carry up to 22 motor vehicles and 250 passengers.

Editorial Director Lynda Clancy can be reached at lyndaclancy@penbaypilot.com; 207-706-6657.