Sisters fill Dover - Boulogne gap
'Seven Sisters' shows it size. Photo: Ian Boyle
A new ferry and freight service has taken over the Dover-Boulogne route six months earlier than planned.
Christophe Santoni, managing director of new service provider LD Lines told MJ, 'Research showed the demand was there from tourist passengers and freight customers to bring forward the start date of the service.'
The way the company has done this is by introducing a commercial freight and passenger service that will take advantage of the berthing used by the last, and now defunct, ferry operator and moving over a pair of ships to the new route. It won't be anything like the last service however, running conventional ships instead of the 'superfast' variety.
From last month there are two daily return sailings on the Dover - Boulogne route with a crossing time of 1 hour 45 minutes. These are being brought online at the same time as the daily round trip between Dover and Dieppe, which has a crossing time of 4 hours 15 minutes.
The twin sister ships on the new routes will alternate between the 'Seven Sisters' and 'Cote d'Albatre', both of which are already operating on the Newhaven - Dieppe route under the Transmanche Ferries name, part of the LD Lines network. These were the first newbuild ferries for LD in quite a while, and the company made a bit of a splash with them.
Both the 'Côte d'Albâtre' and the 'Seven Sisters' were built in the shipyards of Barreras at Vigo in Spain, and launched in 2006. They are large, at 142.4m LOA. Wärtsilä 8L46C diesels give a total power of 16,800 kW and a speed of 22 knots (over 40 km/h). The sister ships have capacity for 600 passengers and 300 cars or 52 freight vehicles, or combination of both. Each also has 50 luxury cabins and are also equipped with stabilizers for difficult weather conditions.
Mr Santoni added, 'A profitable ferry service must rely on a combination of passenger and freight business and by introducing a conventional ship to operate between Dover, Boulogne and Dieppe, both freight and tourist markets will have an extensive choice across our expanded route network.'
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