Majority looks to having state pay for the expense.

Carrie Jones

Feb 15, 2026

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Havana.

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AUGUSTA—The recent back-and-forth over whether pilots need to be on The CAT ferry has taken a significant turn.

Last week, the state legislature’s transportation committee mostly came out in favor of a tweaked bill that still requires pilots on the CAT as it enters Frenchman Bay, but would have the state pay the $325,000 expense.

Pilots are meant to ensure that large ships (tankers, ferries like the CAT, cruise ships) enter harbors safely.

Throughout the United States, pilots board vessels like The CAT or cruise ships and cargo ships offshore, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year if the weather permits. The pilots’ job is to navigate those ships to ports. And then, they guide them out again. Typically, they employee local ship captains who employ local stern men to get them to the The CAT or other vessels. Canada does not require pilots for The CAT.

State rules require a harbor pilot on board as the ferry departs and arrives in Bar Harbor during its season. There are typically daily departures and arrivals during the ferry’s season, which generally runs from mid-May to mid-October.

The bill initially sought for the CAT to be exempted because its captains sail the route multiple times in a season.

The bill had first been tabled after a legislative work session, January 29, then amended and received a divided report after another work session on February 5.

Of those on the committee, the majority voted to pass and three voted against the amended bill.

The CAT ferry had asked for an exemption from the need for pilots. The New England Fishermen’s Stewardship Association announced the change in the bill’s purpose, January 29, declaring that it will ask instead for state funds to help with the cost of the pilots.

LD1477 bill had been introduced by Rep. Gary Friedmann (D-Bar Harbor) and Senator Nicole Grohoski (D-Ellsworth).

The initial proposed legislation received a divided report in May 2025 and was carried over from that year. It received its second divided report February 2025.

The amendment renames the bill “An Act to Subsidize the Pilotage Costs for Ferries Operating Between Bar Harbor, Maine and Yarmouth, Nova Scotia.”

It requests that the state provide the funds for the pilotage services, which is approximately $325,000.

Dan Walker of Preti Flaherty appeared before the commission to present the amendment and said that everyone would rather this new version go through the economic development committee (DEC). This is due to the tweak that would have The CAT continue to use the pilots but have Maine pay for them.

“This amendment was the compromise position reached with the Pilotage Commission and the pilots,” Rep. Friedmann said, February 9. “However, the committee, at the request of the DOT, changed the receiver of the funds from DOT to DEC, and that will be reflected in a change to this language in the final version of the amendment.”

“In a private discussion that you and I had, we talked about different scenarios when you had proposed changing the language for this. Did you ever have the ability to produce a parallel scenario where Nova Scotia was subsidizing any Maine businesses that were operating in Nova Scotia?” Rep. Steven Bishop (R-Bucksport) asked during the February work session.

Walker hadn’t, but said that Nova Scotia’s payments into the service was $20 million.

They do, however, pay the United States to keep the ferry terminal in Bar Harbor, which includes terminal staff and five border agents.

“The benefit is that this is an investment in maintaining this maritime highway open. It’s an investment in keeping open the the terminal in Bar Harbor…. There’s Mainers who work on the CAT. There’s 15 Mainers who work at the terminal. There’s five border patrol agents that maintain it. And then all of the other surrounding tourist business in Bar Harbor that benefit as a result of this, of the ability for people to go back and forth between the two countries,” Walker said.

Topics discussed included cost, keeping the maritime highway between the countries open, and the decrease in cruise ship visits to Bar Harbor (which also had required pilots).

“I do have concerns, you know, moving forward in the viability, the economic concerns they discussed around the decrease in cruise ship boats, what that looks like, and finding the right balance of keeping the industry strong to support, the vessels coming in,” Rep Lydia Crafts (D-Newcastle) said.

Any qualifying, large vessels that do come in to Maine will need continued access to pilots.

“I would want to make sure that the coast of Maine has enough business to keep them going,” Crafts said of the pilots, who locally have had a loss of income after cruise ship changes that have decreased the amount of large ships coming to Bar Harbor.

Also during the work session, the committee expressed its concern that though the Pilotage Commission is operating within its authorities, two positions added still haven’t been appointed in the last legislative session, and also that those serving currently have yet to be reappointed.

In November, at the request of Rep. Friedmann and Bay Ferries, which runs The CAT, the Bar Harbor Town Council unanimously supported efforts to no longer use pilots for the ferry.

The ferry had its second highest season in 2025 with 39,745 passengers and 16,233 vehicles. In 2024, it had ferried 49,299 passengers and 19,935 vehicles. In 2024, the Nova Scotian government committed to subsidizing the ferry for two more years, with that support coming in at approximately $21 million in 2024. An economic study determined that tourists generated approximately $20 million during the 2023 season in the Canadian province. It’s first 3.5-hour trip this season is May 14.

It costs approximately $350,000 to the Province of Nova Scotia for the pilot service for The CAT in Bar Harbor.

The CAT is 8,127 tons with a 12-foot draft and it might have over 800 people onboard. The pilots execute a 180-degree turn when docking it at the Bay Ferries Terminal at the town-owned site on Route 3. Pilots move it through a roughly 600-foot channel between lobster buoys and gear and back to its port, which is further than where cruise ships dock.

The Penobscot Bay and River Pilots Association are part of a current lawsuit against the town’s cruise ship disembarkation limits of 1,000 people a day without fines. That case is ongoing with arguments having been heard in United States District Court in Bangor this past week.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/wyD4OCR7Fck?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

UPDATE: We added clarifying language about pilotage requirements in Canada at February 15, 9:24 a.m. Many thanks to our reader who noticed we needed it!

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