The post you are reporting:
Very gratifying to have two additional ferry port destinations from Dover added in one day. Rather sad that we have to rely on foreign operators to provide the excitement these days. Only a few years ago British ferry companies reigned on the channel. Now Britanny Ferries dominate the Western Channel, LD Lines run from Portsmouth and Transmanche Ferries from Newhaven. Folkestone is derelict as a consequence of the demise of Sealink following privatisation and the subsequent Sea Containers debacle. Ramsgate is home to the rather curious Transeuropa Ferries, running to Ostend and manned by Croatians.
Dover hosts SeaFrance, Maersk and P&O (owned in France, Denmark and Dubai respectively) and the port itself may be destined to follow the traditional privatisation route into foreign hands as per the airports, the nuclear industry, the railways, the utilities, etc, etc.
As some consolation, LD Lines are British manned. This is not from choice but to avoid the onerous French social security obligations. Equally, we have the French unions to thank for the P&O and Maersk vessels retaining British crews as they will not countenance other than British or French crews running between Britain and France. I should really be a paid-up member of the CGT!
LD Lines are the new kids on the block but look set to become major players in the years to come. They are part of the Louis Dreyfus empire and consequently have the financial wherewithal to weather the recession and to expand wherever they sense the opportunity. Both Norfolk Line and SeaFrance are frequently quoted as being in their sights.
Norfolk Line is shortly dispensing with having their crewing being supplied by Maersk Marine Services and will be manning the vessels direct, which may or may not be of significance. SeaFrance is a basket case which has lost a fortune in the last couple of years. SNCF has stated that it has no intention of selling the company off but has demanded substantial cuts. The troubled Moliere is off to refit with the elderly Renoir standing in, and the increasingly bedraggled Cezanne has gone off to Dunkerque seemingly to lay-up with the retired Manet.
LD came on the scene when P&O axed many of their routes in the run-up to the company being sold off. LD stepped in when P&O closed the Portsmouth-Le Havre service. They acquired the ex-Dover ferry Aquitaine from P&O and have been running her very successfully as the Norman Spirit. Their concept is that of a no-frills low-cost yield-management operation which has proved very popular with the freight operators and with Brit ex-pats living in Normandy.
An additional vessel has now been added to the route in the form of the Norman Voyager, although she is an off-the-peg Italian Visentini newbuild which has experienced numerous teething troubles, not least car drivers initially complaining of having to negotiate a death ramp to an open-air skating-rink car deck!
Following their entry into the UK ferry scene at Portsmouth, LD then took over management of the Transmanche Ferries operation between Newhaven and Dieppe. They inherited two new Spanish-built ferries which were put into service three years ago, the Cote d'Albatre and the Seven Sisters.
LD are not entirely happy with these twins but have to make the most of them. Basically, they are smaller than is economically desirable but their size is the maximum that Newhaven can handle. Their predecessors went aground from time to time on the shallow bar at the entrance and the Seven Sisters sustained damage last year when she collided with the breakwater.
LD manages Transmanche on behalf of the Conseil General de Seine-Maritime who subsidise the Newhaven-Dieppe route to encourage British tourism to Dieppe and the surrounding region. The accounts are accordingly kept entirely separate from the rest of the LD operation. The subsidy pays for three round trips per day from Dieppe to the UK. This requires more than one ferry but less than two.
The route has always operated on a knife-edge. In order to try to make the service pay and to help the Dieppe council to keep the subsidy affordable, LD has been using the excess availability to run a daily round trip from Newhaven to Le Havre. This has not made money. Therefore they are going to try a daily round trip from Dieppe to Dover and see if that makes money. This way, Dieppe still gets three daily sailings to the UK.
With the demise of Speed Ferries, they are going to combine this with two round trips from Dover to Boulogne. As these side trips are separate from the operation subsidised by Dieppe, LD are effectively chartering the ships from Transmanche during these periods. The Transmanche livery is accordingly retained as the ships are owned by TMF not LD.
The livery derives from the time when TMF was instituted following the decision of P&O-Stena to pull out of Newhaven-Dieppe and concentrate on Dover. TMF chartered the Sardinia Vera from Corsica Ferries, who have the yellow hull colour. TMF just added a big green T on the hull and the funnel. Rather attractive in my opinion.
Dieppe also had to somewhat reluctantly purchase the port of Newhaven after Sea Containers bailed out. Sea Containers were handed this and several other ports for peanuts, together with the Sealink fleet, when Sealink was flogged off in the great British Rail privatisation give-away. They retained it all for a suitable period then sold everything off at great profit, cheerfully provided at the expense of the British taxpayer.
Newhaven is in a state of disrepair and there is no money to do it up. Dieppe have offended the locals by closing off their beach rather than cough up for renovations required to keep the access safe. Newhaven council is trying to get the beach declared as a village green as this would force Dieppe to reopen it! They are drawing inspiration from the fact that the Estonian master of a cargoship entering the port was breathalysed and subsequently prosecuted for drink driving under the Road Traffic Act!
LD originally intended to open the Dover-Boulogne route in July. This is when the first of the new berths in the outer harbour will be completed enabling the current generation of superferries to berth for the first time. They have tentatively pencilled-in the Norman Spirit to transfer from Portsmouth, with another vessel, unspecified as yet, to take her place.
The end of Speed Ferries and a reduction in the Newhaven-Dieppe subsidy has persuaded them to use one of the TMF ferries to perform two daily round trips Dover-Boulogne. These are small enough to berth in the inner harbour on the old berth vacated by Speed One.
Curt Stavis of Speed Ferries approached Pierre Gehanne of LD last July when it was apparent that time was running out for Speed Ferries. They had been playing catch-up ever since they commenced the service, selling tranches of tickets in advance to pay for current operations. They had originally chartered the vessel at a very favourable rate from the shipyard in Australia when it was itself in receivership. The shipyard recovered but the charter ran out and Speed Ferries were forced to take out a bank mortgage on the vessel at higher cost. The huge rise in fuel costs last year allied to the fall in the value of sterling against the Euro were the final straw.
LD were prepared to help Speed Ferries remain in business but Curt was adamant that Speed One had to remain in service and the talks stalled over this. High speed catamarans are bad news and a recipe for losing money. They cannot carry freight and this is what pays the bills. Tourist traffic is icing on the cake. The LD operation will carry freight, cars, coaches, foot pax, the lot.
It was rather sad to see Speed Ferries go under as Curt and his backers seemed a well-intentioned bunch. They were successful in forcing their competitors to reduce their tourist rates to compete but it is now apparent that this was only possible at the expense of a huge unwitting subsidy from other interests.
They went bankrupt owing several million Euros to the ports of Boulogne and Dover, their suppliers, and all the passengers who had bought books of tickets in advance - which they were still selling up until the last minute. They mounted a very successful and highly questionable "Fight the Pirates" campaign which provided immense free publicity but at the end of the day they will be remembered as being the pirates themselves. Not what they would have wanted.
The LD service to Boulogne will carry foot pax as and when they can open up a desk in the Booking Hall. P&O have a spare desk but have a lease until 2014 and are not prepared to release it. I seem to recall reading that LD do not envisage carrying foot pax to Dieppe as the costs involved do not add up.
Pierre Gehanne has a blog on the LD Lines website and appears refreshingly open and dynamic. One wonders what he makes of having to entertain the very different character of the beleagured Bob Goldfield at DHB with his extraordinary treatment of his loyal workforce, the scathing contempt apparent in the leaked correspondence from the port users, and his seemingly doomed plans for port expansion.