Shepler’s Taps Moran Iron Works to Build Ferry

A $3.8 million ferry for Shepler’s Mackinac Island Ferry will soon be under construction at Moran Iron Works in Onaway, Michigan.
 

The 85-foot, all-aluminum ferry—to be christened Miss Margy—is scheduled to carry its first passengers in July 2015. The keel will be laid in mid-January and the hull completed over the next four months. The ferry will then be launched through Moran’s Port Calcite Collaborative, a deepwater port in Rogers City, Michigan and transported to Shepler’s facility in Mackinaw City, where seating will be installed and painting done.

The 281-passenger ferry, Shepler’s largest, will have a top speed of about 40 mph. Shepler’s currently has a fleet of five passenger ferries and one cargo vessel.

Miss Margy will be a K Class passenger vessel built in accordance with U.S. Coast Guard regulations. Moran is working with SeaCraft Design, a naval architecture and design firm based in Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, for the vessel design.