Brittany Ferries' Barfleur, which completed its final English Channel route sailing on Monday, has since made its maiden crossing from Cherbourg to Rosslare Europort, where it arrived yesterday afternoon, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Today's corresponding crossing to Cherbourg has been cancelled (based on earlier consultation of the company website), which now show a change to this Friday, 16 October.
The 20,133-ton ferry, which served the English Channel route of the Cherbourg-Poole route since 1992, completed its final round trip crossing from the French port, but earlier than planned, as the service was scheduled to close in early November.
The reason was due to the Le Havre-Portsmouth routes’ ropax Commodore Clipper, which developed a gearbox failure leading to repairs at the Normandy port, from where it too was forced to prematurely close the route last month. As such, to boost capacity, the ropax was to be rostered onto the route to Ireland, from where it has run previously.
Because of the technical issue with the Commodore Clipper, this has led to a knock-on effect, placing other ferries from the company network to cover its absence. The latest example is with the Barfleur, which, according to the company website, is to operate on the Cherbourg-Rosslare route but only for this month. Also noted over recent weeks has been the deferred date of Commodore Clipper’s re-entry to service, with the latest update seeing the ropax delayed into early December.
In the meantime, Cotentin continues connecting Cherbourg, despite plans to withdraw the ropax within the first week of this month, so to prepare to sell the 2007-built ropax, which is now running albeit in a freight-only capacity. Also, maintaining the Ireland-France route is the E-Flexer Santoña and the chartered P&O ropax Norbay, also running in a freight-only role.
The closure of the Cherbourg-Poole and Le Havre-Portsmouth routes is due to cost-cutting measures as the company faces financial challenges amid rising costs, among them EU carbon charges, as previously reported. In addition, the impacts on tourism at Cherbourg are also a severe blow at Poole; however, routes to St. Malo and Guernsey with an onward link to the Breton port remain unaffected.
The moves by Brittany Ferries have seen a major restructuring on the English Channel and also involve selling the Barfleur-built 1992. There are reports from UK media that the purpose-built ropax in mid-October is to be handed over to Stena Line, which had previously chartered the ropax and renamed Stena Baltica for Scandinavian service.
Noting that both Barfleur and Cotentin are aging, more polluting fossil-powered fuel vessels within the fleet. As the company in recent years committed its biggest ever investment with the largest fleet renewal programme of its history, with the Stena RoRo's developed ‘greener’ E-Flexer series, numbering five newbuilds all introduced within a five-year timeframe.
Of the five E-Flexers, three remain on charter from Stena: Galicia (with green credentials), Santoña, and Salamanca (both LNG fuel-powered), which have served Ireland-France/Spain and UK-France/Spain routes. Whereas the other two, Saint-Malo and Guillaume de Normandie, were last year acquired from the Swedish company.
The latter two are shorter length E-Flexers and (hybrid-LNG) powered, which serve exclusively English Channel routes of Portsmouth-St. Malo and Portsmouth-Caen (Quistreham), which is connected by the Caen canal to the inland port town where the Barfleur has wintered during years of seasonal service.
With the recent closures of the other Normandy routes, Brittany Ferries will, however, increase capacity on the Cherbourg-Portsmouth route but not until March 2027, when the chartered in Wexford enters the Rosslare route too.
