Historic Cape Cod Ferry, Featured In 'An Officer And A Gentleman,' May Go Up For Sale

FALMOUTH, MA — A ferryboat that has plied Cape Cod waters since 1998 could soon leave them, after Steamship Authority officials on Tuesday voted to consider the potential sale of the M/V Governor.

The 242-foot-long, decades-old vessel is a back-up for carrying up to 250 passengers and freight between the Cape and the island of Martha’s Vineyard.

But the Steamship Authority has another standby, M/V Sankaty, and has said the 12-boat public fleet needs only one reserve.

The Sankaty is a larger and much newer boat, built in 1981.

The Governor launched in 1954, when it was known as the Crown City and ran a route off San Diego, according to historical records. In 1969 the boat was renamed as the Kulshan and shuttled among islands in Puget Sound, Washington – while being featured in the 1982 Oscar-winning movie, “An Officer and a Gentleman.”

The boat later transported passengers to and from Governors Island, off lower Manhattan, hence the name. The Massachusetts authority purchased the vessel in 1997.

The Governor “has far exceeded its useful life cycle,” wrote SSA General Manager Alex Kryska in a memo on Monday. With recent renovations to other vessels, he said, the Governor is redundant and should be put up for sale.

“Maintaining excess spare capacity results in approximately $1.5 million annually per vessel,” he wrote.

But at Tuesday’s meeting of the authority’s Port Council, some members questioned whether the Governor was the right choice – or at least if there was hard information to support it.

“You really want to have data,” said council member Eric Dawicki. “My gut says no, and folks on the Vineyard really love the Governor.”

Council member Nathaniel Lowell said, “I understand the nostalgia – the nostalgia is real. But if we have to pick, we have to pick the Sankaty [to continue service].”

The Port Council is an advisory body to the board of the authority, a quasi-public agency chartered by the state as the Woods Hole, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steamship Authority. That's where the final decision will reside.

It’s not unusual for the authority to sell or buy ferryboats, as needs for service change and the watercraft eventually wear out. In 2024, the SSA sold two aging freight vessels, the Katama and the Gay Head, for a total of $250,000.

The Governor could ring a price tag of around $325,000, according to Kryska, but the numbers are uncertain.