A veteran ferry of P&O is set to make a final voyage to Turkey to be recycled at the beach in Aliaga after operating for three decades on the Dover-Calais shuttle route.

The sale of the 1993 built Pride of Burgundy, which P&O returned to the route in 2021 took place only a week after new UK-France rival Irish Ferries launched a service, marks a return to buying action by Turkish ship recyclers who have been quiet since a devastating earthquake hit the country a month ago which involved assistance of a former Irish Sea ferry.

It is reported by brokers that ferry from the German shipyard of Schichau Seebeckwerft, has been sold to an EU-approved recycling facility for $320 per ldt. The sale from the UK based ferry subsidiary with routes also on the Irish Sea, will see Dubai’s DP World netting $3.7m.

Pride of Burgundy was originally to be a freight orientated ferry, however the design during construction was completed to include accommodation for 1,420 passengers, 465 car and 120 lorries. Its largely uneventful career shuttling passengers and cars across the English Channel came to an end in May 2020 when the ferry was placed in lay-up after demand dropped due to Covid-19, but the ship briefly returned to active service later that year, but in a freight-only capacity.

As alluded above, AFLOAT adds ‘Burgundy’ returned for further freight-mode service yet again in 2021 as part of joint P&O/DFDS space chater agreement. More recently, it has been laid up in the River Fal, Cornwall and now the ferry’s current location Afloat tracked to Dunkirk East on Saturday, where in neighbouring Calais, Irish Ferries Isle of Innisfree sailing the previous day from Dover, had an engire room fire that led to a tug required. Upon arrival at the French port, passengers safely disembarked.

As Tradewinds also reports, P&O Ferries has just introduced into service newbuild P&O Pioneer (however, Afloat notes bookings will not be available for travel until 1st May) on the ship that was completed by Guangzhou Shipyard International.

This is the first of two double-ended ‘Fusion’ class ferries for the Dover-Calais run. The 47,394-gt battery hybrid ropaxes, the company claims are to be “the most sustainable ships ever to sail on the English Channel”.

The second of the class, P&O Liberte, is expected to enter service in the fourth quarter. At that stage, ferry industry observers believe P&O Ferries will sell another of its ropax vessels of a similar age to the Pride of Burgundy.