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Displaying items by tag: Wexfordbased company

Celtic Link Ferries are to introduce a new ship in October and the company are running a competition to name the vessel on the Rosslare-Cherbourg port route, writes Jehan Ashmore.
The multi-million euro new vessel will offer a more extensive range of passenger facilities with a greater choice of bars, restaurants and a play areas on the direct continental service to France.

With the entry of the new ferry, the Wexford based company are asking the public to come up with a name that is relevant to both the French and Irish market.

Competition entrants will be in a chance to win a prize, for you and your family to sail at the time of your choice (subject to availability) on the ferry you have named. The prize includes cabins both ways and your vehicle. For further details on how to enter the competition go to www.celticlinkferries.com

To read more about the new 27,500 tonnes vessel which is slightly larger to the current route vessel Norman Voyager click here. The new ship has a speed of 25 knots, an increased passenger capacity of nearly 1,000 passengers, 800 cars or 150 freight vehicles.

Published in Ferry

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).