The ferry is officially gone. Kind of.

The city hasn't closed on the sale, but at least the boat has left Rochester.

The ferry departed abruptly for Shelburne, Nova Scotia, on Thursday. The city will pay about $300 a day to dock it there; that's cheaper, according to city officials, than it has cost to dock it here.

On Saturday, after clearing the St. Lawrence Seaway locks in Massena (getting scraped up a bit in the process) the boat made an unexpected stop in Matane, Quebec, to ride out rough weather. It was still docked there on Tuesday, waiting for conditions to improve. Then it'll sail for Halifax, where it'll undergo repairs and an inspection before heading to its winter berth in Shelburne.

The decision to move the ship was made after Bay Ferries, which has been running the vessel for the city, advised that if it didn't sail on Thursday, there might not be another chance before the Seaway closed for the winter at the end of December.

City officials had hoped that a deal with Euroferries, the primary prospective buyer, would be completed before the boat left. A last-minute request from one of the company's two financing partners quashed that, according to Mayor Bob Duffy.

Regardless of whether Euroferries consummates the deal, city officials were upbeat last week about getting the boat out of the Seaway system. If another prospective buyer comes along, the city can sell the boat without waiting for the Seaway to reopen (which usually doesn't happen until around the first of April). The Great Lakes, said Corporation Counsel Tom Richards, are "the worst place in the world to sell a boat" for that reason. "No one can buy it if it's locked this side of the Seaway."

If Euroferries fails to put together its financing, it's agreed to pay for the cost of moving the ferry to Nova Scotia, city officials said.