Eastern Shore boatbuilder eying Bay cruise ship

BALTIMORE (Map, News) - Ship ahoy. Drawing on a landlubber yen for coastal cruises, a boatbuilder in Salisbury will soon launch another pocket cruise ship — initially slated for a Baltimore homeporting — that will regularly explore Chesapeake Bay sights and beyond.

“The vessel will be starting in Baltimore on June 2, for a Chesapeake Bay cruise,” said American Cruise Lines Vice President Timothy Beebe of the 220-foot, 100-passenger American Star, currently under construction at the Chesapeake Shipbuilding Corp.’s yards.

“We do cruises all along the East Coast,” Beebe said, “but we usually do the first cruise right out of Chesapeake Bay. The American Star is doing three cruises in the spring of next year and a couple in the fall.”

It’s permanent homeport will be Bangor, Maine.

The minimal amenities coastal and inland waterways cruiser — whose operational sister-ship, the American Spirit, will conduct seven, Baltimore-based local cruises in 2007 — caters to travelers who thrive not on luxuries but on close-up encounters with American history and sights, guided by onboard historians and naturalists.

Since its own launching in 2000, American Cruise Lines has had all four of its “cultural cruise” vessels — the two 220-footers and two, 170-foot, 40-passenger liners — built at Chesapeake Shipbuilding, and can’t build them “fast enough,” Beebe said.

The ships come off the ways in this rural Eastern Shore area — home to Maryland’s second-largest port and three marine construction-related companies — whose booming economy boasts a 3.8 percent unemployment rate.

“All in all, these three companies provide 300-400 jobs in the shipbuilding industry, which is a significant amount for our neck of the woods,” said Dave Ryan, executive director of Salisbury-Wicomico Economic Development Corp.

Ryan said that 400 square mile, 85,000-person Wicomico County boasts 50,000 jobs overall.

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