The State of North Carolina has been very good to shipbuilding companies along the Gulf Coast. In the last 10 years, nearly a dozen ferries have been built or substantially modernized in Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas. In just the past two years, the second largest state ferry system in the nation has built two 180-ft. car/passenger ferries and substantially renovated two additional vessels. The two new ferries are literally carbon copies of each other. "They were built from the same set of plans, so it is difficult to get two vessels any more similar than that," said Dan Noe, manager of quality assurance for the North Carolina Ferry Division.