That didn’t help the Nova Star. It went bankrupt, and the boat was seized by the US Marshals in order to settle debts. Some of the creditors still haven’t been paid.
I took the ferry to Yarmouth one time (many many years ago). But I left from Bar Harbor not Portland. Is that ferry still running?
I imagine it’s because it’s the closest to Portland. If you look on a map at Nova Star’s old route, the shortest distance is between Portland and Yarmouth. Yarmouth also already has the infrastructure in place to handle the ferries.
To the poster who suggested the ferry going to Halifax – that wouldn’t make sense. Halifax is on the other side of NS. The ferry would have to loop around half the province to reach it (look at a map).