Category: Blog posts

Between 1995 and 2001 the Fosen shipyard in Norway delivered a sequence of six large overnight ferries to Southern European operators, five of which were for Adriatic use by Minoan…

P&O’s Spirit of Britain, now in service on the Dover-Calais route, is the first purpose-built passenger ship for this operator on this service since 1987 and the new ship’s vast…

Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV), originally a project of the well-known Grimaldi shipowning dynasty, first entered the competitive trade on Italy’s west coast in 1993 with the delivery of the Majestic,…

Despite her regrettable demise, one cannot hide from the fact that the Apollon was in rather ropey condition in her final few years. However, if one overlooked the exploding toilets…

After the recent cull of Southern Europe’s elderly ferry fleet, which ships will be next? There remain plenty of veterans out there, and the list below is a bit of…

The railway author George Behrend died in July. Behrend was one of my heroes, one of the greatest of transport authors, whose obsession with noting every small detail on his…

Olbia, the primary port of Sardinia, features one of the greatest concentrations of large overnight ferries in Europe – alongside other Mediterranean megaports such as Piraeus, Genoa and, during rush…

The Contenders A crossing on a grey day out of Tangier Med provides a perfect opportunity for two vintage ferries to see who can be first beneath the shadow of…

In 2006 Brittany Ferries somewhat unexpectedly chartered the long-serving Duke of Scandinavia (ex-Dana Anglia) from DFDS with Brittany’s Val de Loire heading in the opposite direction. With minimal refurbishment, the…

A whole day in port – time for the crew to take a breather and relax in advance of another packed sailing in the evening? Not so for the crew…