Roll-On, Roll-Off Ferries

[carryfast]

Ray Smyth:

Grumpy_old_trucker:
Early 80s perhaps 83 or 84 working for Smiths of Scotter I tipped Turin and after tipping I went to the office and requested the extremely pretty receptionist if she would send Smiths a telex for reload details, a couple of coffees later and the reply came.

Head to Genoa and I’m booked on the ferry to Palermo, load Siracusa with oil rig equipment for Aberdeen.
Only my 2nd trip and as a young guy not long out of the army it seemed like a good adventure.
I can’t recall the name of the ferry company but they apparently only ran 2 ships, one was something like “freccia rose” and the other “freccia blue”, 24 hour crossing, shared a cabin with a Sicilian guy who spoke perfect English as he had been living in the states and was on his way home for a holiday to spend time with his family… Mafia? I daren’t ask him!

Loaded Siracusa and shipped back Palermo to Livorno before going to Edmundsons office at Navarra to clear.
I’ve tried searching for the name of the ferry company and to see if there were any photos of the ships without success, maybe Ray might have more joy than I have.

Hi Grumps, Thank you for your interesting post. My journeys into mainland Europe were few and far between, I probably did no
more than about 20 trips with my 16 tonner or my Sprinter or Transit in my 49 years on the road. With regard to Italy, I set foot
just over the border from France to a location near Ventimiglia, and two hours later I was back over the border into France.
That was my only connection with Italy. Regards, Ray.

Freccia Rossa.Blue would have been Azzuro ?.

shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=27114

[ray_smyth]

" Commodore Goodwill " of Commodore Shipping arriving at Portsmouth on a misty morning.

Ray Smyth.

[peggydeckboy]

YES,RAY SMITH,NOEL-ZWECKER that is the name from the past for me,RUNGIS PARIS and the FERRYS,some of the drivers were as you say ENGLISH, but they would put the IRISH accent on ,like some of the welsh chaps pretending to be Southeren Irish from PEMBROKE ON FOR TRANSCON,P& O,they would forget when on the ferries…

[deanb]

Grumpy_old_trucker:
Early 80s perhaps 83 or 84 working for Smiths of Scotter I tipped Turin and after tipping I went to the office and requested the extremely pretty receptionist if she would send Smiths a telex for reload details, a couple of coffees later and the reply came.

Head to Genoa and I’m booked on the ferry to Palermo, load Siracusa with oil rig equipment for Aberdeen.
Only my 2nd trip and as a young guy not long out of the army it seemed like a good adventure.
I can’t recall the name of the ferry company but they apparently only ran 2 ships, one was something like “freccia rose” and the other “freccia blue”, 24 hour crossing, shared a cabin with a Sicilian guy who spoke perfect English as he had been living in the states and was on his way home for a holiday to spend time with his family… Mafia? I daren’t ask him!

Loaded Siracusa and shipped back Palermo to Livorno before going to Edmundsons office at Navarra to clear.
I’ve tried searching for the name of the ferry company and to see if there were any photos of the ships without success, maybe Ray might have more joy than I have.

May have been GNV ferries from Genoa ?

[deanb]

Anyone remember Comite ferries ■■ Surprised it says Portland,would have thought it would have been Weymouth.

[grumpy_old_trucker]

Carryfast:

Ray Smyth:

Grumpy_old_trucker:
Early 80s perhaps 83 or 84 working for Smiths of Scotter I tipped Turin and after tipping I went to the office and requested the extremely pretty receptionist if she would send Smiths a telex for reload details, a couple of coffees later and the reply came.

Head to Genoa and I’m booked on the ferry to Palermo, load Siracusa with oil rig equipment for Aberdeen.
Only my 2nd trip and as a young guy not long out of the army it seemed like a good adventure.
I can’t recall the name of the ferry company but they apparently only ran 2 ships, one was something like “freccia rose” and the other “freccia blue”, 24 hour crossing, shared a cabin with a Sicilian guy who spoke perfect English as he had been living in the states and was on his way home for a holiday to spend time with his family… Mafia? I daren’t ask him!

Loaded Siracusa and shipped back Palermo to Livorno before going to Edmundsons office at Navarra to clear.
I’ve tried searching for the name of the ferry company and to see if there were any photos of the ships without success, maybe Ray might have more joy than I have.

Hi Grumps, Thank you for your interesting post. My journeys into mainland Europe were few and far between, I probably did no
more than about 20 trips with my 16 tonner or my Sprinter or Transit in my 49 years on the road. With regard to Italy, I set foot
just over the border from France to a location near Ventimiglia, and two hours later I was back over the border into France.
That was my only connection with Italy. Regards, Ray.

Freccia Rossa.Blue would have been Azzuro ?.

shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=27114

Thanks Carryfast, the picture in the ferry is the company that operated at the time ( if memory serves me right).
Sicilferry, many years later working for G&S I did the trip by road and shipped from Villa san Giovanni to Messina, ■■■■ long way down by road.

[ray_smyth]

In the middle of August 1998, I got a phone call from Stan Mercer, the brother in law of my nephew David.
Stan said that he and his wife were moving to Callac in Brittany, North West France at the end of the month,
and would I do his house move with one of my vans, I said OK, and he offered me an excellent rate for the
job, consisting of Pound Notes in the arse pocket. Three years earlier, Stan and his wife had bought what was
a tumbledown house near Callac, and spent the last 3 years making it habitable, and I did a partial move to
the house with my Mercedes 814D in 1995. I phoned Brittany Ferries to book the crossing for the Friday of
August Bank Holiday, and was told that none of their routes to France had any capacity for a lorry. I told them
that my lorry wasn’t a big artic, but a Leyland 50 Series boxvan, only 28ft long. They said I could risk turning up
at Poole and hope that they could squeeze me on. I loaded Stans stuff at Rugeley in Staffordshire, and arrived at
Poole about 9pm. They eventually found me a space when they called me on at 11.30pm. I drove off Barfleur the
following morning about 6 a. m. and went to the office to enquire about my return sailing, and they said the best
chance would be from Roscoff.

After delivering to Stans house, I left Callac, and arrived at Roscoff ferryport, and went to report for the overnight
sailing to Plymouth about 10 p m, in case there was any space. The only other lorry there was an artic of Mulgrew
Transport from Northern Ireland. There was no space for us, and the Quiberon sailed off into the night fully loaded.
It was now Sunday morning, and me and the Mulgrew chap tried to book in for the morning sailing on Val De Loire.
A large amount of the tourist traffic on this sailing was cars towing caravans. No room for any lorries again.
The same thing happened with the afternoon sailing on Quiberon. Me and the Mulgrew chap eventually were loaded
on the Sunday night sailing to Plymouth, on board Val De Loire. Pictures 1 and 2 are late Friday evening at Poole, and
pictures 3 and 4 are Sunday morning at Roscoff.

Ray Smyth.

[carryfast]

Grumpy_old_trucker:
Thanks Carryfast, the picture in the ferry is the company that operated at the time ( if memory serves me right).
Sicilferry, many years later working for G&S I did the trip by road and shipped from Villa san Giovanni to Messina, ■■■■ long way down by road.

I went there to the GT race meetings at Enna with my car.Genoa to Palermo down and drive back.Enna to Milan in one hit including the Messina ferry running back with other Dutch,Danish and German quick car nuts.

That ship seems to have ended up been connected with Moby lines at some point and Sicilferry was before my time going there.I used GNV for Sicily and GNV and sometimes Tirrenia for Sardinia.While the Juliana, which I’d been on years before on the Harwich-Hook of Holland route, became the Moby Prince which was involved in the Livorno disaster and the Boccaccio, which I’d used on the Genoa Arbatax route, sank after being sold/chartered on a Middle Eastern operation.

[ray_smyth]

The " Purbeck " is bow-on at Ouistreham, (Caen), and is about to unload.
The rear ramp door is partly open, probably to allow the exhaust
gasses to pass quickly from the vessel. This picture was taken from
on the " Normandie " as I was departing for Portsmouth.

Ray Smyth.

[peter_coaker]

Thank you for starting this thread Ray.

My family business was farming and livestock transport, this included exports and journeys to most of the Scottish Islands, so for several years, I was almost a professional ferry passenger.

During the 1950’s and early sixties, most of the exports were done by air until airlines got more expensive and ferries got cheaper. So my first experience of ferry travel was as a teenage passenger with Townsend Car Ferries, between Dover and Calais and Zeebrugge on the original Free Enterprises and the dreaded Autocarrier, with occasional use of British Rail and SNCF ships, I have vague memories of Lord Warden and Compiegne.

By the time I started driving in 1971, we were mainly going to Holland, Belgium and Germany via Great Yarmouth to Schevening using Norfolk Line, on either The Duke of Holland or The Duke of Norfolk, these small ferries carried 12 drivers and most of the traffic was the companies own unaccompanied trailers or Dutch trucks. Apart from ourselves and Trevor Price from Hay on Wye doing similar work, the only other British trucks I remember were occasional loads of fish from Croans and Donans.

Soon after this time BAI, which was more generally known as Brittany ferries started between Plymouth and Roscoff, which was great for us, as we were only 20 miles from Plymouth, so if the weather was bad, the trucks were able to carry on and do something else, as opposed to paying lairage time and sitting waiting 200 miles from home. We used Brittany ferries for many years, I have fond memories of the club atmosphere that existed on The Pen Ar Bed, although this changed as the ferries got bigger and filled up with tourists. Over the years I sailed on every ship in the fleet, including charters such as The Bonanza up until about 2000. Foot and mouth came along in 2001 and after that I left livestock work.

Prior to Brittany Ferries, for most parts of France we used Thoresen Ferries from Southampton to Le Harvre, sailing in the original Vikings, at the same time we reverted to Dover for Northern France and Belgium and over the years I traveled on all of the fleets of what first became Townsend Thoresen and later P & O, Sealink and SNCF.

We also regularly used Sealink, Harwich to Hook of Holland, Olau line, Sheerness to Vlissengen (lovely ships), Sally Line, Vlissengen to Dartford for return crossings when not carrying livestock and whilst it existed, Eurolink Ferries, Sheerness to Vlissengen, (not so lovely ships).

Other crossings were, Harwich to Esbjerg and Goteborg with DFDS (again lovely ships), most Irish Sea crossings and Scottish Ferries, CalMac and P & O, and in the late 1970’s journeys to Greece, via Epirus Line and Fragline from Bari.

As well as others I have forgotten about

Happy times

[ray_smyth]

Peter Coaker:
Thank you for starting this thread Ray.

My family business was farming and livestock transport, this included exports and journeys to most of the Scottish Islands, so for several years, I was almost a professional ferry passenger.

During the 1950’s and early sixties, most of the exports were done by air until airlines got more expensive and ferries got cheaper. So my first experience of ferry travel was as a teenage passenger with Townsend Car Ferries, between Dover and Calais and Zeebrugge on the original Free Enterprises and the dreaded Autocarrier, with occasional use of British Rail and SNCF ships, I have vague memories of Lord Warden and Compiegne.

By the time I started driving in 1971, we were mainly going to Holland, Belgium and Germany via Great Yarmouth to Schevening using Norfolk Line, on either The Duke of Holland or The Duke of Norfolk, these small ferries carried 12 drivers and most of the traffic was the companies own unaccompanied trailers or Dutch trucks. Apart from ourselves and Trevor Price from Hay on Wye doing similar work, the only other British trucks I remember were occasional loads of fish from Croans and Donans.

Soon after this time BAI, which was more generally known as Brittany ferries started between Plymouth and Roscoff, which was great for us, as we were only 20 miles from Plymouth, so if the weather was bad, the trucks were able to carry on and do something else, as opposed to paying lairage time and sitting waiting 200 miles from home. We used Brittany ferries for many years, I have fond memories of the club atmosphere that existed on The Pen Ar Bed, although this changed as the ferries got bigger and filled up with tourists. Over the years I sailed on every ship in the fleet, including charters such as The Bonanza up until about 2000. Foot and mouth came along in 2001 and after that I left livestock work.

Prior to Brittany Ferries, for most parts of France we used Thoresen Ferries from Southampton to Le Harvre, sailing in the original Vikings, at the same time we reverted to Dover for Northern France and Belgium and over the years I traveled on all of the fleets of what first became Townsend Thoresen and later P & O, Sealink and SNCF.

We also regularly used Sealink, Harwich to Hook of Holland, Olau line, Sheerness to Vlissengen (lovely ships), Sally Line, Vlissengen to Dartford for return crossings when not carrying livestock and whilst it existed, Eurolink Ferries, Sheerness to Vlissengen, (not so lovely ships).

Other crossings were, Harwich to Esbjerg and Goteborg with DFDS (again lovely ships), most Irish Sea crossings and Scottish Ferries, CalMac and P & O, and in the late 1970’s journeys to Greece, via Epirus Line and Fragline from Bari.

As well as others I have forgotten about

Happy times

Hi Peter, Thank you for your very interesting post. You have done far more ferry crossings than I have, I was in transport from
1965 aged 21, and did my last job aged 71, delivering a Machinery trailer from Wigan to a Plant Hire company at Muir Of Ord,
which is t`other side of Inverness. You mentioned a Brittany Ferries vessel, " Penn Ar Bed ", I have a picture of it somewhere,
I will dig it out and post it on here, among a few others from long ago. My ferry crossings with a lorry or a van is no more than
about 20, and a similar number by car for pleasure.

Cheers, Ray Smyth.

[ray_smyth]

Class 1 HGV driver David McMillan gave me this keyring. He got it about 20 years ago, when he
was employed as a driver to load and unload unaccompanied trailers on and off the Stena Line
ferries at Stranraer which operated to and from Belfast. I think that perhaps, Stena Line were
sponsors for Scottish football club, Stranraer F.C.

Ray Smyth.

[deanb]

Peter Coaker,

This may bring back some memories !

Click on pages twice to read.

1973 Norfolk Line.

[ray_smyth]

This is " Bretagne " loading at St Malo for the morning sailing Portsmouth in 2007
on a sunny day, and under a dark sky in mid channel 3 hours later.

Ray Smyth.

[ray_smyth]

I started this thread just recently, and in my opening post, I mentioned that the first Roll-on, Roll-off
ferry that I went on was B + I Line, M.V. Munster in 1979 from Liverpool to Dublin and return. Most of
my ferry journeys since then with van, lorry, or car have been with Brittany Ferries to France and Spain.

I have just finished reading a booklet called " Only Brittany Ferries " which I have had for many years,
and I was surprised to learn that in 1979, the company chartered M.V. Munster from B + I line to cover
for two of their own ships that were having engine trouble. These were " Cornouailles " on the Plymouth
to Rocsoff route, and " Prince Of Brittany " serving St Malo. Not my Picture.

Ray.

[deanb]

Ray Smyth:
This is " Bretagne " loading at St Malo for the morning sailing Portsmouth in 2007
on a sunny day, and under a dark sky in mid channel 3 hours later.

Ray Smyth.

Ray the Bretagne visited Poole harbour back in 2007 and at that time it was the largest ever vessel to have visited Poole.
The Bretagne took over the route whilst the Barfleur was in dry dock for its annual refit.

I dont know if you are aware but before they could operate the MV Barfleur they had to deepen the main channel to 7.5 metres
at a cost of 6.5 million as Poole harbour is very shallow.

[ray_smyth]

DEANB:

Ray Smyth:
This is " Bretagne " loading at St Malo for the morning sailing Portsmouth in 2007
on a sunny day, and under a dark sky in mid channel 3 hours later.

Ray Smyth.

Ray the Bretagne visited Poole harbour back in 2007 and at that time it was the largest ever vessel to have visited Poole.
The Bretagne took over the route whilst the Barfleur was in dry dock for its annual refit.

I dont know if you are aware but before they could operate the MV Barfleur they had to deepen the main channel to 7.5 metres
at a cost of 6.5 million as Poole harbour is very shallow.

0

Hi Dean, Thank you for your info regarding Bretagne, Barfleur, and Poole. In the back of my mind, I seem to recall
that in early 1992 when Barfleur was nearing completion at the shipbuilders, it was decided to increase its capacity
by lengthening it, thus delaying its entry into service on the Poole to Cherbourg route. Am I right or dreaming ?

Cheers, Ray.

[peter_coaker]

DEANB:
Peter Coaker,
Hello DEANB, the article certainly does bring back memories. As well as the Great Yarmouth to Esbjerg service, Norfolk Line were also known to fly drivers if accompanied demand exceeded available berths. I never experienced this ,as shipping livestock, the driver had to be on board.
There is also mention that DFDS’s vessel, Winston Churchill, was to have a new sister ship. This was the Dana Regina, somewhere I have a photo of her passing Winston Churchill at sea, fully dressed on her maiden voyage. A few weeks later, I was to sail to Esbjerg on her, in her day, the finest ship on the North Sea. I also recall at about that time, the Sealink service, from Harwich to Hoek van Holland, was operated by St George (British Rail) and Koningin Juliana (SMZ).

Yes good memories

This may bring back some memories !

Click on pages twice to read.

1973 Norfolk Line.

3

2

1

0

[deanb]

Ray Smyth:
Hi Dean, Thank you for your info regarding Bretagne, Barfleur, and Poole. In the back of my mind, I seem to recall
that in early 1992 when Barfleur was nearing completion at the shipbuilders, it was decided to increase its capacity
by lengthening it, thus delaying its entry into service on the Poole to Cherbourg route. Am I right or dreaming ?

Cheers, Ray.

Indeed they did Ray ,added another 9 metres.

Click on pages twice.

You will notice that the pic in the first clipping is an artist’s impression and the actual Barfleur is the pic in the second clipping.

February 1992.

A couple of pic’s of the Barfleur being built in Finland.

NMP.

June 1992.

Originally launched in her Truckline colours.

[ray_smyth]

Hi Dean, Thank you for confirming that " Barfleur " was lengthened prior to entering service I 1992.
I have attached some pictures taken at Cherbourg on a very windy but suuny day in 2001.
Barfleur is seen arriving, and also " Bow On " at the linkspan, about to unload and then reload
for the afternoon sailing to Poole.

Cheers, Ray.