HyLine Commissions M/V Monhegan For Canal Cruises
The M/V Monhegan has replaced HyLine Cruise’s longtime Cape Cod Canal Cruise vessel M/V Viking after the Viking’s permanent move to Hyannis.
The Viking had been the company’s sole Canal Cruise vessel since 1979; the vessel will now run HyLine’s Hyannis Harbor Cruises instead.
The company’s December “Rewind 2022” blog post noted its intention to move the longtime Canal Cruise vessel and bring another one, the M/V Monhegan, in to take its place. In a June 20 Facebook post, HyLine announced that the Monhegan will be operating out of Onset. The vessel took its first cruise down the Cape Cod Canal last Friday, June 23.
Murray Scudder, one of HyLine’s owners, told the Enterprise that the company purchased the Monhegan in the fall of 2021 with the intention of replacing the Viking. After months of refitting at Fairhaven Shipyard, he said, the vessel was brought to Onset and put into service for Canal Cruises.
“She’s looking really nice,” he said. “She’s a classic boat; nothing cookie cutter about Monhegan.”
According to www.mvmonhegan.com, the vessel’s long history of service began with the Maine State Ferry Service, which launched the vessel in 1959 as a small vehicle and passenger carrier. It was later sold and commissioned as a dinner/party/sightseeing vessel out of Rockland, Maine, by a private owner. Mr. Scudder said that as he understands it, the vessel spent much of its time in Rockland being used as a floating shoreside restaurant.
The website also says the vessel “is best described as ‘The ’59 Cadillac of Boats’—big and powerful, representing the pinnacle of mid-century modern America.”
Cruise season aboard the Monhegan is now in full swing. Canal Cruise tickets can be reserved at www.hylinecruises.com/cape-cod-canal-cruises/.