Front Page matters

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Ferries: a spirit of survival

By Roger Bray, Chairman, BGTW

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The trouble with this ship, observed a colleague, is that the crossing is too short. I bumped into him aboard Spirit of Britain, first of a pair of new ships being introduced this year by P&O Ferries. Wandering out on to the private Club Lounge deck I had already reached the same conclusion.

A few degrees warmer and it would have been possible to spend the journey lying in the sunshine on a teak lounger with a glass of champagne. More like a cruise ship than a workhorse sailing between Dover and Calais.

Its highly likely Guild members will travel on the ship - or her sister Spirit of France, due to enter service in September - to January's AGM at Nausicaa in Boulogne. That's my excuse for this brief advance introduction – that and the recollection that it was widely predicted the opening of the Channel Tunnel in 1994, would lay waste to the ferry market on the short sea routes.

Ferry operators argued many travellers would still prefer a leg stretch and maybe a relaxing meal at sea to the more functional, if less time consuming process of shuttling through a hole underground. They were not left unscathed. As price war raged, P&O and Stena Line merged their short sea operations to fight as one.

Their survival is mainly down to aggressive, targeted fares – and the fact that on ferries passengers have more time to shop (there are even specially located parking spaces on the new ships for passengers humping cases of booze). Stubborn love of slow travel was a relatively minor reason. But such is the feeling of spaciousness and comfort aboard Spirit of Britain that as I lunched in the Brasserie, I preferred to imagine it was.

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