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2. WINTER LAY-UP LISTINGS We will feature winter lay-up listings for the various lake and river ports in our February issue. That means that we need YOU to go to your local port(s) right away to make up a list of the boats wintering there. Please be accurate with names and check all ships present. (It makes our job more dif ficult when we get reports of the same ship wintering at two or even three different p o r t s ! ) If your list includes ferries, tugs, etc., please be sure to label them as such. We need your list AT THE VERY LATEST during the week of January 20th in order to make our preparation deadline for the February issue. Later reports will have to wait for our follow-up in the March issue. Please mail your lists to the Editor at 100 Whitehall Road, Toronto, Ontario M4W 2C7 (please do NOT use the Ward's Island address), or you may phone us at (416) 921-8436 (EVENINGS ONLY, please - no daytime calls except on week ends). Or you may fax the Editor at his office - (416) 361-2872. If you fax, please do NOT address the fax to T. M. H . S., but rather to J. N. BASCOM - H . O. CLAIMS DEPT, to ensure that it reaches us and does not confuse anybody else in the office. We thank you for your assistance with this important annual project. * * * * * MARINE NEWS Don't hold your breath... but it looks as if we actually will see passenger service across Lake Ontario between Toronto and Port Dalhousie during the 1997 season. Arriving at Toronto in early December was the former Marine Atlantic Inc. high-speed, aluminum-hulled ferry MARINE COURIER (C. 803712), which had been registered at St. John's, Newfoundland, but now has her new home port, Toronto, painted rather crudely in white on her blue stern. This vessel is 121 feet in length, with tonnage of 316 Gross and 160 Net, and was built in 1983 at Georgetown, Prince Edward Island. The new owner of the 144passenger ship is Shaker Cruise Lines, an enterprise of Capt. Ihab Shaker, who has experience on salt water as well as in the Toronto excursion busi ness. To be renamed (b) CONSTELLATION for her new service, the boat is unlikely to have any trouble with rough water on Lake Ontario because she was built for service in the open waters around Newfoundland. Shaker is refitting her over the winter and hopes to begin service across the lake in late March or early April. A crossing to Port Dalhousie will take only about one hour, and esti mated fare is $10 one-way. It is also planned to operate trips to Rochester if customs arrangements can be made, and a crossing to that city from Toron to would take about two hours. We wish the new operator well with its ve n ture, and hope that CONSTELLATION'S service will prove more successful than other short-lived experiments in cross-lake service, with regular vessels, hovercraft and hydrofoils, that have popped up occasionally in the years since the venerable CAYUGA made her last run to Niagara-on-the-Lake and Queenston on Labour Day, 1957. The three long lake cruises planned by Hapag-Lloyd for its new-building pas senger vessel COLUMBUS for September and October apparently sold out very quickly. They were being sold only on the European market, and not locally. Because of the level of demand, Hapag-Lloyd Tours is now making plans for five lake cruises for COLUMBUS in the 1998 season, commencing in August. Furthermore, according to a press release from The Mariport Group, HapagLloyd is considering taking an option on a sistership to COLUMBUS, with the intent of operating a full seasonal programme of cruising in the lakes, provided that the COLUMBUS programme is a success. This is the best news that lake shipping observers and local fans of passenger ship travel have had in many years. After all, 1997 will be the 30th anniversary of the re tirement of the Chicago, Duluth & Georgian Bay Transit Company's steamer SOUTH AMERICAN, the last passenger ship in regular overnight lake service.