b'MEMBER NEWSThoma-Sea to Build New Ferries for Louisiana Department of Transportation and DevelopmentT heLouisianaDepartmentofTrans- Designed by Elliott Bay Design Group, alsobe upgraded to fully electric in the future.portation and Development (DOTD)a PVA member, the boats will be equipped announced that it received an apparentwith a hybrid propulsion system allowing theConstruction of the two new ferries is expect-low bid from Thoma-Sea Marine Construc- ferry to operate in a hybrid mode, resultinged to begin early next year with an estimated tors, LLC for the construction of two newin lower exhaust emissions. The batteries incompletion in mid-2025. ferries for the Cameron crossing in Cameronthe battery-powered electric thruster will be Parish, La. Both companies are PVA members.charged by diesel generators on board but can The 190 x 50 x 13 boats will replace the M/V Cameron II, which was built in 1964. The ferries will be end-loading vessels in or-der to load and unload large commercial ve-hicles. Two boats will be built so that servicePhoto courtesy of Hy-Line Cruiseswill continue uninterrupted when one vessel undergoes required dry docking as per U.S. Coast Guard regulations.Allowinguninterruptedservicetoallvehi-cles, including commercial vehicles, is a major RENDERING COURTESY OF ELLIOTT BAY DESIGN GROUPadvantagetotheareaseconomicdevelop-ment, said DOTD Secretary Shawn D. Wil-son, Ph.D.The new ferries will also provide continuity for hurricane evacuation routes in southwest Louisiana.In the past when the ferry was in drydock, aRemotely Monitor & Track Your Assetstemporary side-loading ferry was put into ser-vice. This allowed passenger vehicles to cross, but trucks longer than about 50 were unable to Monitor from Phones, Tablets, Computersuse the ferry and had to detour approximately Detect Anomalies Early100 miles around the Calcasieu Ship Channel. Simplify Record Keeping and InvoicingThe two new boats will allow ferry service of Fuel and Speed Reportingcommercial vehicles to continue uninterrupted.Receive Alert Notifications gplink.com| +1.252.504.511333 OCTOBER 2022'