Category: Blog posts

Farewell Doric Ferry, Kapetan Alexandros

Quietly, the Kapetan Alexandros A ex-Doric Ferry, last of the ships of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, left her lay up in Keratsini under tow of the tug Christos XIV…

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A visit to the Masarrah (ex-St Columba, Stena Hibernia, Express Aphrodite)

Completed in 1977, the St Columba/Stena Hibernia became something of a legend on Irish Sea services through the 1980s and into the 1990s. Finally ousted by the arrival of the…

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Building the ‘D’ Class – Part Two

In the first part of our look at the construction of the Maersk ‘D’ class, we reviewed the three vessels at various stages as they grew from the bottom up…

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Building the ‘D’ Class – Part One

There have been some significant new ships for Cross-Channel operators in the past decade, most notably the Seafrance Rodin and Berlioz on the short sea and the Mont St Michel…

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Kapetan Alexandros A (ex-Doric Ferry) – an update

Perhaps I spoke too soon with the comment in the previous post that it seemed the Kapetan Alexandros A was coming around to Brindisi for a further Summer! Agoudimos have…

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May Day in Denia

I spent twelve successive childhood Summers in Javea (Xàbia), on Spain’s Costa Blanca, a resort town separated from nearby Denia by the looming presence of Montgó, a 2,470-foot mountain which…

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Last of the line: the Kapetan Alexandros A (ex-Doric Ferry)

The six purpose-built ships of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company were completed at British shipyards between 1957 and 1968 for ASN’s North Sea and Irish Sea operations and all had…

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Viking XPRS rebuild

Such has been the success of Viking Line’s new Viking XPRS, operating for nearly twelve months between Helsinki and Tallinn, that her owners are extending the ship already: Dear passengers!…

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Last of the classic train ferries: A round trip with the Rosalia

In Northern Europe the train ferry is under threat. The scene surveyed by P. Ransome-Wallis in his masterful book Train Ferries of Western Europe at the end of the 1960s…

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Farewell Roi Baudouin, Georgios Express

The legendary Georgios Express, the former Belgian/RMT Roi Baudouin of 1965, set sail on Monday, 23 March, under tow to Aliaga in Turkey for scrap. The ship had been laid…

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