Vince — I went Calais /Dover yesterday. The delay was 4 hrs. I did see a damaged truck on the quayside but, as usual, there wasn’t any info about why we were delayed. It was a bit windy coming down the corridor, so I just assumed it was a bad weather day in the channel.
Eventually got boarded — it did seem a bit strange that they were spacing the trucks out a bit more than usual ie one at a time going onto the ramp, and that was to get onto the bottom deck.
Had the usual jolly moan at the crew in the restaurant, shouldn’t have to pay for a meal because of the delay etc. — It was a freight only P&O boat, so a bit more chilled / relaxed.
This was at 13:00, and that boat had only made one crossing that day because of the delays — apparently, the drivers on the Dover /Calais leg were really miffed at sitting outside Calais for hrs!
The crew told us about the ramp collapsing — they said two trucks had gone in the drink, and a Spanish driver was in a bad way. They also said, in a separate incident, one of the Sea France boats had lost part of its “gate” (don’t know what that means) in the channel and had been taken out of service.
Got back to the UK, and Radio 2 were mentioning berthing problems at Calais (big chuckle for them birthing v berthing!)
Got on the internet this morning to see what I could find out about it — absolutely B A, apart from a delay warning on the Sea France site. Being an ex insurance bod, I went onto the Lloyds List site and found the following:-
"FERRY services between Dover and Calais were thrown into disarray after the partial collapse of a ramp at the port of Calais on Tuesday night.
Two lorry drivers, one Hungarian and one Portuguese, and a port crane driver suffered slight injuries after one side of the lower level of the double-deck number seven ramp collapsed when a support cable ruptured.
Two lorries, which were disembarking from P&O’s Pride of Burgundy shortly before 10.00pm on Tuesday, fell on to their sides on the ramp and, according to one report, the cabin of one of the vehicles finished underwater.
While the cause of the accident is being investigated the loss of number seven ramp is causing serious disruption of ferry services at the port.
Out of the five ramps now available at the port, two — numbers four and six — are being repaired, and a third — number three — can only accommodate smaller vessels. The port was believed to be on the point of announcing, moreover, that this latter ramp would be closed so that its support cables could be checked and replaced.
This means that the port’s two ferry operators, P&O and SeaFrance, will be left to share the only two large ferry ramps — numbers five and eight — still in service.
The two companies said yesterday that they were doing their best to limit disruption. However, ferry services were running three hours late in some cases as vessels were obliged to queue outside the port before getting access to a ramp for disembarkation"
I’ve got another four crossings to do this month — will have to allow more time and/or use the train!
, I struck up some social ■■■■■■■■■■■ with loading personel, they informed me 
due to the accident on Tuesday when a link span collapsed whilst a boat was discharging 
, that as from Monday 14/02/2005 French officials will be inspecting the the only working link spans (which their are only two) to make sure they are (excuse the pun) ship shape and 
■■■■■ fashion.
to say the least.
