Armorique arrived at Rosslare Europort on Wednesday from Cherbourg, where the Brittany Ferries cruise ferry completed its first round trip from France yesterday afternoon, writes Jehan Ashmore.
It is understood this was the first ‘passenger’ sailing carried out by the 1,500-capacity cruise ferry on the Ireland-France route. The 29,468-ton ferry also handles 470 cars and 65 lorries, and its design is based on the freight-oriented 22,542-ton ropax Cotentin it temporarily replaced.
It transpires the 2009-built Armorique, as previously reported, has relieved the 160-passenger/170-freight-trailer-unit ropax’s roster to enable covering dry-docking of the 2007-built ferry. Armorique joined an existing but stepped-up ‘daily’ capacity route since Stena’s closure in September, with a pair of the E-Flexer class, Galicia and Salamanca. Together they operate a three-ship service.
Afloat tracked the freight-oriented Cotentin head aptly into the Baltic Sea, having been previously named Stena Baltica during its charter with the Swedish ferry giant.
Initially Stena RoRo chartered Cotentin in October 2013; however, the next month it was sub-chartered to Stena Line and introduced on the Sweden-Poland route of Karlskrona-Gdynia, from where Stena Vision previously served. Further along the coast to the east is the port of Gdańsk, where the ropax yesterday entered the Portowy canal with tugs Agis and Mars assisting its transit to the dry dock.
The Finnish-built ropax's dry-docking this month is to be followed by its return, as the company website has Cotentin’s French connection resuming in early December. Its first sailing is scheduled from Cherbourg on 2 December, exactly a week after Armorique’s final round-trip crossings to Rosslare. Up to last week, the cruise ferry completed its midweek sailings on the Cork-Roscoff route along with the flagship Pont-Aven at the weekend, marking the end of the seasonal service, which resumes in March 2026. Meanwhile, the flagship is covering St. Malo-Portsmouth duties as outlined below.
At this time of year, with winter dry-dockings scheduled in place, it's normal for a reshuffle of ferries to be redeployed within the Brittany Ferries network. Among them is the company’s second newest E-Flexer, Saint-Malo, currently redeployed from its namesake port and route linking Portsmouth. The cruise ferry entered service in February and replaced the England-France’s former flagship, Bretagne, and was sold to Spanish operator Baleària and renamed Rosalind Franklin.
It is from the English Channel port where Saint-Malo made its debut commercial crossing on the Bay of Biscay when running a sailing to Bilbao, Spain. The cruise ferry replaced the Galicia's cancelled crossing to Rosslare as fleetmate Saint-Malo takes over yesterday’s lunch-hour departure from Bilbao, to be followed with a maiden port of call to the Irish port this evening.
Armorique is no stranger to Rosslare Europort; in 2021 the company launched its contingency transitional 'Bypass-Brexit' freight routes to avoid the UK land bridge. The cruise ferry’s freight-only role had a most unusual and comprehensive route network involving four routes linking Ireland and France.
The weekly schedule began from France, starting with Roscoff-Cork, Cork-Roscoff, Roscoff-Rosslare, Rosslare-St. Malo, and St. Malo-Cork, culminating with the Cork-Roscoff.
Afloat was also tracked at Gdańsk at the Remontowa Shiprepair Yard, which completed the lead ship of a class of a trio or four 195 m new LNG-hybrid-powered ‘green’ ropax ferries, Jantar Unity, for the also new Polish operator Polsca Baltic Ferries. The newbuild has already carried out sea trials and is due in service next year.
