A trip aboard
Chi-Cheemaun is a long standing
Great Lakes tradition dating back to the 1930s when a small, wooden vessel,
Kagawong, first ferried vehicles across the
Georgian Bay between Tobermory and South Baymouth. It features a drive-on, drive-off
bow and stern loading and unloading through a visored bow system and a square door stern section. The ship is long with a
beam and has capacity for 648 passengers and 143 vehicles, including room for large highway vehicles such as
buses and transport
trucks.
Chi-Cheemaun was initially powered by two Ruston
diesel engines and an
bow thruster engine for improved handling of the vessel at slow speeds. During the 2006–2007 winter layover period, her Ruston engines were replaced with four
Caterpillar V8 diesels. The addition of two
mezzanine decks in 1982 increased the ship's vehicle carrying capacity. Like her predecessors on Lake Huron,
Chi-Cheemaun is owned by
Owen Sound Transportation Company Limited, an agency of the Ontario Ministry of Transportation (MTO)
Chi-Cheemaun makes the trip in about one hour and 45 minutes, three times each day during peak season and twice a day (with an extra trip Fridays) during May/June and September/October. From 1989 to 1992, her
sister ship,
MS Nindawayma, ran the same route, but was retired because of service problems leading to public dissatisfaction and sat rusting in
Owen Sound, Ontario. It was finally
broken up in 2012 at Purvis Marine in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. ==Information radio==