Well yet another old girl is on her way to the scrapyard!
I would imagine that almost every continental driver must have sailed on her between Dover and Calais. Entered service in 1987 and finished in 2012 but then had a respite on the Ramsgate-Ostend route renamed as Ostend Spirit until the company went bankrupt.
Now sailing under her own steam towards Aliaga beach in Turkey. Here’s a post I made on the Dover Ferries site.
I wonder what the atmosphere on board is like. The plucky old girl battling her way gamely through the busy shipping lanes. All those huge empty passenger lounges, bars and restaurants. The empty car decks once thronged with transiting traffic. The throb of the mighty Sulzer diesels impelling her toward her own destruction. The ghosts of her myriad passengers and the crews who sailed her across the straits. Onward, onward sail to thy doom Gallant lady who once gaily tripped The trade lanes of commerce and pleasure, Whose decks were shaken by juggernauts And the thrilled voices of adventurous children. Your only fault was your perfection. Built for one route only You could not be adapted to ply The seas of your majority and old age. No fading away for such as you Just the finality of the gas axe and The ignominy of some Turkish beach.
She was the first ferry I ever sailed on when I was 9 to Germany to visit my father. She was also the last ferry I sailed on on my one as only HGV trip abroad if you can call it that.
I put a few meals down the toilet on that one, and her sister.
It would always get a good cheer when the captain introduced him self as Captain Kirk.
My wife and I were stuck on the Calais for 14 hours going up and down the channel one evening when the French were protesting about something at Calais. The Captain opened the bar at half price when it became obvious we were going to be out for quite some time.
It was the same night that the Oxford uni’s were having their rag week so there were were loads of drunk student dress as vickers and tarts, and by about 2 am most were passed out drunk where ever they fell.
When we were first told that we weren’t going to Calais all the French drivers were very supportive of the farmers for going on strike, Viv la revelation and all that stuff. It was different matter when after 10 hours at 7 am the Captain told us we were heading for Zeebrugge but couldn’t get a berth for another 3 hours and then some of them realized they didn’t have enough fuel to get them home.
When we got on the boat my mate decided that as he had come in that morning swapped trailers and go back out he was going to have a kip on his bunk rather than go top side. My wife reminded me about midnight that he was still in his truck so I made an excuse to the bursar and went down stairs. I got to his truck and knocked him up and told him we had both over slept and we were heading back to Dover. He had just woken up so he wasn’t really with it and panicked for the next few minutes…
I also managed to throw up on it one night when we were still tied to the dock in Dover.( it was very windy, honest )
It’s a fascinating site especially if tracking the small coasters, usually of no more than 2000t dwt, these are watery version of general haulage trampers. I’ve often watched them come into my local Port of Sharpness or places like Bideford or Teignmouth and I’ve always assumed they just plied between the UK and Benelux Europe. Yet they regularly come into Sharpness from Black sea ports. and one, Emms Traveller, which was in Sharpness just before last Christmas, sailed from there to Aberdeen where she loaded for Cape Town. That trip took her 3 months, loading back from Abidjan on the Ivory Coast to Norway. On other occasions you can find them way down the Rhine and other inland waterways. Until you look at a site like this you don’t realise how similar to the M4 the English Channel is.
She and her sister, Pride of Dover, were ordered by Townsend Thoresen and were the successors to the Pride of, Herald of, and Spirit of Free Enterprise class ships.
Pride of Dover was delivered in Townsend colours but by that time the Herald disaster had occured and Townsend had already been taken over by P & O.
Pride of Calais, aka Ostend Spirit, was delivered a year after the Pride of Dover in full P & O livery.
They were both excellently designed ships for the Dover Calais run but would have been difficult to operate on any other which is why they were impossible to sell as going concerns.
I remember seeing a program about the hearld and im sure they said that was one of the factors in what happend as that was set up gor the dover calais crossing
just out of interest following up what Jazzandy said about the Enterprise ■■■■■■■■■ one of them old girls is still in service today although renamed the Pride of free enterprise ( ex Pride of Brugge) lives on!
Pride of Free Enterprise entered service in 1980. After leaving the P & O fleet she was on the Ramsgate Ostend run for seven years as ‘Oleander’. Now she is in the Med. and based in Rijeka under her new name of ‘Sherbatskiy’
Spririt of Free Enterprise ran the Piraeus-Kos-Rhodes service for seven years after she left P & O and she was scrapped at Aliaga in March 2012.
Herald of course was the subject of the Zeebrugge disaster and once she was raised went for scrap.
Pride of Calais is currently circling outside Aliaga at full speed burning off fuel before she is beached!
By the look of things she’ll be one of many, I guess with the Med being tideless it makes the work of chopping them up easier than in India.
Do you think our H&SE or Environmental people would allow it, looks like there’s money to be made
Jazzandy:
She and her sister, Pride of Dover, were ordered by Townsend Thoresen and were the successors to the Pride of, Herald of, and Spirit of Free Enterprise class ships.
Pride of Dover was delivered in Townsend colours but by that time the Herald disaster had occured and Townsend had already been taken over by P & O.
Pride of Calais, aka Ostend Spirit, was delivered a year after the Pride of Dover in full P & O livery.
They were both excellently designed ships for the Dover Calais run but would have been difficult to operate on any other which is why they were impossible to sell as going concerns.
Could you please explain why she couldn,t have gone somewhere else . Not well up on the ferry side of things , is it to with her size and ro-ro decks ■■?
