Bill Shepler News

Sparks are flying on the bulkhead and engine room of the $3.8 million, 85-foot Miss Margy, the newest addition to the Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry fleet, at Moran Iron Works. Bill Shepler, CEO of Shepler’s, and Tom Moran, CEO and founder of Moran Iron Works, announced the project last month, when pre-production work started. The all-aluminum ferry – named after Shepler’s mother – is scheduled to carry its first passengers in July 2015. It will include an air-conditioned cabin…

The passenger vessel market is a classic mature marine market. Segments of it are doing well, while other parts have literally died. For example, the overnight segment of the market saw one substantial vessel delivered in 2003 with none on the horizon for 2004. The Empress of the North, a 360-ft. sternwheeler was put into service in September working the West Coast-Alaska route. Now that ice is a problem in Alaska, the vessel is working the Columbia River system in the Northwest U.S. The vessel was the largest vessel ever built by Nichols Brothers Boat Builders, Freeland, Wash. and is owned by American West Steamboat Company, Portland, Ore. Developing overnight service is the most difficult part of the passenger vessel industry to get established.