Cruise vessel’s launch delayed Co-owner blames Old Orchard board

OLD ORCHARD BEACH – A businessman working on a plan to start a dinner and gambling cruise ship said he had to abandon his Memorial Day launch date because of delays from Town Hall.

Paul Golzbein, co-owner of The Pier Leasing Co., said he lost the spring construction season because the town took so long soliciting an outside opinion on his engineering data. Golzbein said he will have to postpone until next summer.

Town officials said they’re working quickly, but need to know whether there’s a risk that the 186-foot-long casino boat would strike bottom and rupture a fuel line at low tide. They also want to know whether proposed expansions to the pier would be adequate.

“We’ve worked very hard to get this going as quickly as possible,” said Planning Director Tad Redway.

Redway also said Golzbein shares responsibility for some of the delays.

Golzbein won approval from the state Department of Environmental Protection in November to build a 400-foot-long, 12-foot-wide extension to the pier.

The ramp would connect to a floating dock from which passengers would board for whale-watching, sightseeing, dinner and gambling cruises.

Golzbein said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Coast Guard approved the project and that the delay started when Old Orchard’s planning board asked for a review from an outside engineering firm after receiving the plan in December.

The first firm to conduct an outside review, Tec Associates of South Portland, issued an opinion Feb. 8. It said there wasn’t enough clearance for a ship that size between the ship’s bottom and the sea floor.

The town solicited another opinion after Golzbein asked the town not to hire Tec Associates because the firm had bid on the pier extension. Redway said it took time to find another firm.

Appledore Engineering Inc. of Portsmouth, N.H., agreed to take the job, but Golzbein said the original price was too high. The scope of the review was renegotiated and the company started March 19.

In its findings issued Tuesday, Appledore found flaws in the dock design and said a ship that size could berth at the floating dock only during mid-tide and high tide due.

The planning board will review the project on April 26.