THE fastest passenger ferry between Hong Kong and Macau broke down on its first day of service yesterday after being taken for a spin by casino king Stanley Ho and the Governor of Macau.
The CTS-Parkview 200-series Turbo Cat cannot only outpace the previous fastest craft, the Shun Tak Jetfoils, its luxury facilities even extend to gold toilet seats for first class passengers.
On a VIP trip yesterday, Governor-General Vasco Rocha Vieira took the wheel of the $100 million machine, complete with something called a MDI-inverted T-foiled stabilisation system, around Macau's outer harbour, later describing it as 'fantastic' and 'better than a computer game'.
Mr Ho, despite being boss of the rival Shun Tak, now relegated to second-fastest on the route, and Parkview managing director George Wong Kin-wah, looked on grinning.
However, on its trip taking Mr Wong and others back to Hong Kong, one of its two gas turbine engines refused to start and it bobbed gently at the Macau terminal while engineers tried to fix it and bemused passengers looked on.
Mr Wong proudly said he was responsible for the style of the new craft, which was built at the company's own shipyard on the Isle of Wight, England.
