Mufi Hannemann exposed his ignorance when he cavalierly said he’d bring back the Superferry by buying the two vessels formerly owned by Hawaii Superferry. (Hannemann Plan To Revive Superferry Sinking Fast)

Apparently no one told him that the Federal Government has a $140million dollar lien on the vessels that he was expecting to get for a mere $40million.

We won’t even mention the $300,000+ monthly subsidy that we taxpayers would have to cough up to keep the Superferrry running…another little fact that Mufi overlooked. Appears the whole “bring back the Superferry” position was simply a play for Oahu votes…as it is clear Mufi cares nothing for the neighbor isles.

If wasting over $40,000,000 of State Funds already, isn’t enough, Mufi Hannemann wants the State to bring back the Superferries.  Here’s the editorial at the Maui News (with comments):

“When asked how he could revive the Superferry when environmental groups on Maui fought so hard to put it in dry dock last time, Hannemann said the whole process would have to begin anew. He said he would not push it if there was evidence the community was not behind it.”

The neighbor islands universally opposed the Superferry.  That’s because it is a one-way advantage for Oahu to come to our relatively unspoiled islands and loot them.

But Hannemann emphasized he thought having the transportation alternative for farmers, families and business people was well worth going through the effort again. He promised to follow an exhaustive process beginning with community meetings, then going on to the completion of a brand-new environmental impact statement.

How can he say that he’ll follow the EIS process, if he already has his mind made up to use the huge, gas-guzzling, aluminum hulled Superferries that showed they could not withstand our treacherous inter-island channels.  A REAL EIS would show that a smaller ferry that could operate efficiently at lower speeds when going through the Humpback Sanctuary would be a better choice.  But Mufi has his mind made up to use the big, speeding, gas-hogging ferries that constantly broke down.  The cracks in the hull resulted in the Coast Guard having to escort the ferry because they did not believe it was sea-worthy.

The farmers testified that the Superferry was inconvenient and MORE expensive than barging their goods.  Even Maui Pine who owned a stake in the Superferry decided it was cheaper to use the barges.

Hannemann said that, if elected, he’d begin work on the Superferry revival within his first three months.He said the reason it failed last time was that shortcuts were taken – an EIS wasn’t done before the ferry sailed – and, very simply, he didn’t believe the Superferry had someone to champion it. He promised to be that champion.

So we’re going to do a token EIS.  If Mufi already has his mind made up, it doesn’t matter that the EIS will say that these ferries are the wrong type of ship, that allowing vehicles to be driven on and off between islands removes the last barrier to spreading invasive species, that the social and environmental costs of having the million people on Oahu come to the neighbor islands bringing their gangs, drugs, rapacious fishermen, campers and so on might argue against this kind of ferry.

The ex-mayor pointed to his success in getting rail passed on Oahu as proof he could lead a successful transportation project. While he wouldn’t predict how long it would take to get the Superferry going again, he said he was able to get the rail project under way in five years when the average for such an effort is 14.

Yeah, we know how he did that.  He looted the open space funds.  He went to the mainland and held $5000 a plate fundraisers with corporations wanting to bid on the rail project.

When asked if he agreed with his opponent, Neil Abercrombie, that a financially successful Superferry would require a public and private cooperation including the military, Hannemann replied that he was certain there would be help from the public sector.

When Lingle used public money, she furloughed our teachers. What more will Mufi cut to pay for the Superferry?

Larry Geller on Disappeared News highlights an AP article which says what Save Kahului Harbor knew from the beginning – The Superferry wasn’t economically viable and was bleeding money — in default to the State as early as 2008.

Today’s Star-Advertiser buried the AP story Superferry was in trouble early in its run (7/21/2010) as best it could. It ran on page B3, although in fairness it was pretty prominent once you got there. There was no teaser pointing to the story.

Try and find it on their web page. It’s there, down in the fine print.

The thrust of the AP story is that the Superferry was unable to fully pay the required fees to the state starting in July, 2008, and that the Lingle administration was aware of the company’s economic difficulties.

The “disappeared” news is that our media could have figured this out sooner. Bloggers ran through the simple calculations needed to demonstrate that the ferry company was almost certainly losing money. Hawaii Superferry had enough money to pay for web ads that appeared on newspaper sites, though.

Read the whole article at Disappeared News

More details here.

Curtis Lum of Pacific Business News reports that the bankrupt Superferry will pay only $676,000 or half the fees owed to the State of Hawai’i .  But none of the $40,000,000 corporate welfare that the Superferry received will be paid back. The State plans on collecting this money from the other harbor users.

For the complete story of how Linda Lingle bungled this so badly in order to enrich her GOP friend and McCain advisor, John Lehman, see Superferry Chronicles.

THE US government has taken the first step towards an eventual court-ordered auction of two catamarans formerly owned by the bankrupt Hawaii Superferry, by securing arrest warrants against the two ships in Virginia to recoup amounts due.

The move comes one year after Hawaii Superferry entered Chapter 11 protection.

The $12 million barge and ramp used on Maui for the now bankrupt Superferry sat at a dock in Honolulu Harbor on Friday night with an uncertain future.

Harbor officials said the barge was towed to Honolulu from Kahului Harbor on Thursday, docking at Pier 34 at about midnight.

The state paid more than $218,000 to ensure the vessel was seaworthy and to have it towed.  Read more

With great videos and the classic photo of the lone surfer facing down the Superferry.

informationfarm.blogspot.com/2010/03/kauai-superferry-chronicles.html

Saner members of the Legislature, realizing that the State of Hawai’i could not take on subsidizing a ferry system, deflected Souki’s bill proposing a State-run high speed ferry system by turning it into a “study”.

The State of Washington has pretty much eliminated highspeed ferries due to their high fuel use and destructive wakes.  Their ferry fleet is much more fuel-efficient and goes half the distance that a Hawai’i ferry would travel.

Yet Washington is obliged to kick in 50% of the operating costs.  Doing the math, it would suggest that the State of Hawai’i would have to subsidize at least 75% of the cost of  ferries traveling between Oahu, Maui, Kaua’i and the Big Island.

Estimates were that the Maui run of the Hawai’i Superferry may have been loosing between  $100,000 and $300,000 per week.  Adding the long Big Island and Kaua’i routes and the State could be paying a minimum of $300,000 per week or $15 to $46 million per year.

What was Souki thinking?