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Hawaii Superferry declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy

Hawaii superferry during a stop in LA

After sailing stormy seas for more than a year, Hawaii Superferry declared bankruptcy on Monday. The filing came two months after a Hawaii Supreme Court ruling caused the company to suspend operations.

The Superferry, the only passenger ship connecting the islands, had shuttled vehicles and passengers from Oahu to Maui from August 2007 until March of this year, when the Supreme Court ruled that a state law allowing the company to operate while an environmental study was being conducted was unconstitutional.

The company’s $85-million, 364-foot vessel, the Alakai, has returned to Mobile, Ala., where it was manufactured by Austral USA. Last fall, Hawaii Superferry suspended delivery of a second ship, the Huakai, because of the economy.

In a statement, the company said it sought other charter opportunities but found none in time to meet its financial obligations.

“Our efforts to refinance and restructure the company for this interim period with additional investment have not been successful, as yet,” the company said. “Accordingly, a filing of Chapter 11 was an unavoidable next step.”

The Superferry had been the focus of environmentalists’ complaints since the company announced it planned to begin island service. Protests, court rulings and mechanical problems caused the ship to sit idle for months. But it still carried more than 250,000 passengers between the islands during its run.

— Rosemary McClure / Special to The Times

[Photo: Hawaii Superferry during a visit to the Los Angeles area; by Annie Wells / Los Angeles Times]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 6:34 am by Editor and is filed under Hawaii, Kauai, Maui, News, Tips & Advice, Oahu, Tours & Cruises. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

2 Comments on “Hawaii Superferry declares Chapter 11 bankruptcy”

Uncle_Aina Says:
June 8th, 2009 at 3:35 pm
The REAL story is that Hawaii Superferry was created to obtain MARAD loans in order to help support Austal USA to build the JHSV. There was no way the company’s business model could have made money. Maybe someday a investigative journalist with some time to kill will get to the bottom of all this.
Home is DC Says:
July 12th, 2009 at 8:27 am
No,No. It goes much deeper than MARAD and the loan.
It IS about money, but look at ALL the names.
The REAL story lies in who killed it.
It’s easy to follow the money trail to who made the money.
It’s not so easy to figure out who got cut out of the deal AND had the HP to kill the operation.
Just a little imagination and you can come up with it.
But it will never be spoken.