{"id":12617,"date":"2016-06-30T08:00:14","date_gmt":"2016-06-30T15:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/allen-marine-reshapes-a-dream-vessel-2\/"},"modified":"2016-06-30T08:00:14","modified_gmt":"2016-06-30T15:00:14","slug":"allen-marine-reshapes-a-dream-vessel-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/allen-marine-reshapes-a-dream-vessel-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Allen Marine reshapes a Dream vessel"},"content":{"rendered":"

SITKA<\/strong> \u2014<\/strong> The newest vessel in the Alaska Dream Cruise fleet suffered two groundings on two different coasts before it was revived with a 100-ton remodel by Allen Marine. <\/p>\n

The 207-foot cruise vessel, previously owned by Cruise West, was called the Spirit of Nantucket when it grounded near Virginia Beach in 2007.<\/p>\n

It was moved to Alaska and renamed the Spirit of Glacier Bay before grounding outside the National Park of its new namesake, in 2008. Shortly after that Allen Marine, which operates Alaska Dream Cruises, bought the vessel and, with it, a project. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe removed, all told, approximately 100 tons net weight,\u201d said Jamie Cagle, senior vice president at Allen Marine. \u201cWe removed some cabins, some deck structure, false smoke stack. Things like that.\u201d <\/p>\n

The hull was repaired in Seattle before the boat was brought to Sitka, but even so the boat that would be rechristened the Chichagof Dream was found to be out of conformance with U.S. Coast Guard requirements. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to remove a lot of weight off the vessel, due to new stability requirements,\u201d Cagle said. \u201cIt was just heavy in general.\u201d <\/p>\n

That meant the crew at Allen Marine had to remove nearly a story and a half of superstructure from the back deck, which is now a solarium.<\/p>\n

Throughout the process, Cagle said, crews worked with the Coast Guard and marine architects on the required modifications, and in the process they also overhauled the entire interior.<\/p>\n

The work also reduced the passenger capacity from around 100 to the present 70 or 80, Cagle said.<\/p>\n

After the 2008 accident at Glacier Bay, the then-owners took the boat to Seattle for hull repairs, and it remained there until it was brought to Sitka at the end of 2014.<\/p>\n

Cagle said his company has been working in the year and a half since that time to correct the boat\u2019s stability problem.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve been working with the Coast Guard basically since we bought the vessel to figure out the best plan for the vessel and the best direction moving forward,\u201d Cagle said. \u201cPhysically it took almost two years. With all the paperwork and the thought process, it took almost four.\u201d <\/p>\n

As for what the biggest overall change to the vessel was, Cagle said he couldn\u2019t pick just one. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve touched everything on this boat. So yeah, it\u2019d be hard to pinpoint any one thing. Obviously her profile is significantly different because we\u2019ve removed 100 tons, but from the paint job to the fixture and the finishes, the plumbing and the things you don\u2019t even see, everything is new,\u201d Cagle said. <\/p>\n

The Chichagof Dream completed its maiden voyage earlier this month following the two-year remodel project. It was in Sitka Sunday for an eight-hour turnaround before taking on a new load of passengers for another seven-day voyage through Southeast waters.<\/p>\n

The skipper, Stu Vincent, said the overhauled ship has been living up to expectations.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going well. Any time you make this much change to a vessel there\u2019s always the thought, well, what\u2019s going to go wrong. But I\u2019ve actually been surprised that things have gone as well as they have,\u201d he said, adding that the scope of the remodel isn\u2019t a surprise to him. <\/p>\n

\u201cHaving been involved with the company and having done a lot of that work in the past myself, that\u2019s one thing I can tell you about the Allen family. They\u2019re not intimidated by any project. \u2018No\u2019 is not in their vocabulary,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

For Cagle, the amount of work done in Sitka is a major point of pride. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a lot of pride in that we were able to do the vast majority of this project here locally. I\u2019m pretty proud of what some local Sitka boys and gals can do,\u201d Cagle said. <\/p>\n

He wouldn\u2019t say how much the project cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cSingle project, this was definitely one of the largest. We\u2019ve had other contracts that were larger but it was building multiple vessels for things like New York Waterways,\u201d Cagle said, referring to the New York Harbor ferries the Allen company built in the 1990s.<\/p>\n

The Chichagof Dream remodel didn\u2019t stop simply at making the boat seaworthy. The vessel made the jump from grounded to grand, including a first-of-its-kind Himalayan Salt Cave, a sauna-like room with walls of Himalayan salt.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe human body has approximately 87 minerals that it\u2019s comprised of. Himalayan salt most closely resembles that. So being in the room it cleans the air. Obviously it\u2019s giving off some of those elements. It\u2019s relaxing. People come in and just enjoy the atmosphere,\u201d Cagle said, adding that he\u2019s tested it out personally. <\/p>\n

\u201cI have been in here before and it is relaxing,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SITKA \u2014 The newest vessel in the Alaska Dream Cruise fleet suffered two groundings on two different coasts before it was revived with a 100-ton remodel by Allen Marine. The 207-foot cruise vessel, previously owned by Cruise West, was called the Spirit of Nantucket when it grounded near Virginia Beach in 2007. It was moved […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":12618,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[230],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-12617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-state-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12617"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=12617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}