{"id":1379,"date":"2009-07-21T22:29:40","date_gmt":"2009-07-21T22:29:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/?p=1379"},"modified":"2009-11-15T23:25:10","modified_gmt":"2009-11-15T23:25:10","slug":"blast-from-the-past-townsend-car-ferries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/?p=1379","title":{"rendered":"Blast from the past: Townsend Car Ferries"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nHaving looked at the Viking I<\/a> (the first drive-through ferry to serve Britain) and the Norwind\/Norwave<\/a> (essentially the first \u2018ro-paxes\u2019), our attention now turns to Townsend\u2019s Free Enterprise of 1962. Townsend Car Ferries had been around since the 1920s operating, first, a converted minesweeper (the Forde) and after World War Two the Halladale, formerly a frigate. The Free Enterprise however was the company\u2019s first purpose-built ferry and the differences between this vessel and those which had gone before were stark, as was highlighted in the 1962 brochure which offers an interesting comparison from an equivalent late in the Halladale\u2019s career.<\/p>\n

\"Halladale<\/a>
Halladale - 1958 brochure<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"Halladale<\/a>
Halladale - 1958 brochure<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\n
\"'This<\/a>
'This fine ship has all the amenities of a luxury passenger steamer'. However the Halladale was hardly the Canterbury or even the Compiegne (introduced in the same year as this brochure, 1958).<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Free Enterprise: 'A fresh conception of luxurious travel!'<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Carrying 850 passengers and 120 cars (against the Halladale\u2019s 350 and 55 respectively) the new ship proved a massive success and Townsend were able to order a second vessel, the Free Enterprise II, the first British-registered \u201cdrive through??? ferry, which entered service in 1965. Further new ships followed, firmly laying the foundation for the leadership of the Dover ferry market that the company\u2019s successors, P&O Ferries, retain to this day.
\n

\"Despite<\/a>
Despite the name, the opening season for the new ship was not exactly an example of marauding capitalism - one or two round trips a day was the norm, but this was pushed to four in the Summer peak. The 'rival' Dover-Calais car ferry, the Compiegne, only did four trips at Summer weekends, but the SNCF and Thoresen schedules were conveniently arranged such that when one ship was loading in Dover, the other was doing the same in Calais.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nIn terms of post-war Dover Strait car ferries it is however fair to say that SNCF\u2019s Compiegne of 1958 was perhaps the more significant ship in purely technical terms \u2013 she was the first with controllable pitch propellers and bow thrusters although the \u2018FE\u2019 trumped her with a stern door headroom of over 15 feet compared to 12 feet on the French ship. The \u2018FE\u2019s significance for the British ferry scene however was perhaps in highlighting a trend that would become fast apparent through the early and mid-1960s: as her name proudly flaunted, she was owned by an independent operator, free from any governmental constraints to pursue the most profitable and logical design. And, with free enterprise coming to the fore, it was the independent companies who would blaze the car ferry trail with genuinely modern new ships around the United Kingdom during this period \u2013 Tor Line and North Sea Ferries on the North Sea and Townsend, Thoresen and Normandy Ferries on the English Channel.
\n
\"<\/a>
The Free Enterprise of 1962<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"<\/a>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\"An<\/a>
An interior view aboard the new Free Enterprise, showing just how open plan she was. In every way, the little bright green-hulled vessel was a complete contrast to the British Railways ships in operation at the same time as she entered service. Photocard image by the late Ray Warner - see http:\/\/tinyurl.com\/m8ucb6<\/figcaption><\/figure>
\nRemarkably, both the Compiegne and the Free Enterprise survive \u2013 the French ship as a virtual hulk in Alexandria, Egypt whilst the ‘FE’ is today the Okeanis, laid up for a couple of years now in Elefsis Bay, after an abortive attempt to re-enter her latter trade as a Santorini-based day cruiser. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Having looked at the Viking I (the first drive-through ferry to serve Britain) and the Norwind\/Norwave (essentially the first \u2018ro-paxes\u2019), our attention now turns to Townsend\u2019s Free Enterprise of 1962….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[145,425],"tags":[301],"class_list":["post-1379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blast-from-the-past","category-pioneer-car-ferries","tag-townsend-free-enterprise-halladale","wpcat-145-id","wpcat-425-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1379"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2019,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1379\/revisions\/2019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hhvferry.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}