Cotentin - Returning to Brittany Ferries in 2021

[David Williams]

Re future use of Cotentin, I suspect that one option might be to continue on the Poole Cherbourg route freight only and move Barfleur to Le Havre. I really can't see why BF cancelled the Easter Barfleur sailings from Poole and moved her freight only to Le Havre for a couple of weeks.

[Khaines]

Hope this is ok - uploaded to you tube.

 

 

[Gareth]

Nice to see her “home”.  Must be, what, 6 years since she was last at Poole?

[Khaines]

1 hour ago, Gareth said:

Nice to see her “home”.  Must be, what, 6 years since she was last at Poole?

Think she left just before Barfleur returned from Dover?

[Gareth]

On 02/01/2021 at 08:28, Gareth said:

I guess the other possibility would be taking over the Poole-Bilbao route from Pelican?

Scrap that possibility.  Pelican is now showing in the Poole-Bilbao schedules right through to the end of October (apart from when Connemara stands in for her refit cover).

[Solo]

3 hours ago, Gareth said:

Scrap that possibility.  Pelican is now showing in the Poole-Bilbao schedules right through to the end of October (apart from when Connemara stands in for her refit cover).

They must have other plans for her, it would logical to use their own ship for Bilbao or would she be more expensive to run than Pelican?

[David Williams]

25 minutes ago, Solo said:

They must have other plans for her, it would logical to use their own ship for Bilbao or would she be more expensive to run than Pelican?

The Pelican has the advantage that the maximum number of drivers is 4 in one cabin, I guess that makes it pretty efficient crewing wise.

I imagine that the future of the Pelican (or equivalent )  depends on the future of  unaccompanied freight, it was originally an experiment for BF !

[seadog]

The age of Covid has made unaccompanied freight very attractive.

[Afellowes]

I wonder if a future plan could be to replace MN Pelican with the Commodore Goodwill and in turn replace her on the Channel Islands route with another ropax

[Gareth]

I can see that, as a business model, it was probably an attractive option for hauliers long before Covid.  As others have said, means drivers spend their time driving on the road rather than sleeping on a ferry.

However, it will have been a very UNattractive option for ferry companies, because you can pretty much treble the turnaround time and so they will get fewer crossings out of the ship.

That said, as far as I know, unaccompanied is pretty much what the whole East Coast freight ferry network is based on (isn’t it? - certainly the extensive and successful Cobelfret network), so it’s a pretty tried and tested model.

I guess what it is not particularly suited to is integration with passenger-carrying sailings in any large-scale way.  So maybe not a surprise that the extensive success of the model on the East Coast has gone hand-in-hand with the demise of passenger ferry services in that arena.

That also means that, for BF, venturing into unaccompanied freight as a prime offering can really only be undertaken with their limited freight-only fleet (once the passenger ferries go back to carrying passengers).

 

[Khaines]

Would she go back to Stena?

[seadog]

52 minutes ago, Afellowes said:

I wonder if a future plan could be to replace MN Pelican with the Commodore Goodwill and in turn replace her on the Channel Islands route with another ropax

No 5 Berth in Portsmouth, the Commodore Berth, is ill suited to the Pelican, single screw and thruster with stern ramp. There is no room to work a tug either so she would struggle in any weather.

I am not convinced that the Goodwill would cope well with the Bay either.

[Gareth]

15 minutes ago, seadog said:

No 5 Berth in Portsmouth, the Commodore Berth, is ill suited to the Pelican, single screw and thruster with stern ramp. There is no room to work a tug either so she would struggle in any weather.

I am not convinced that the Goodwill would cope well with the Bay either.

I don’t think Afellowes was suggesting replacing Goodwill with Pelican - quite apart from Portsmouth 5, Pelican would be far too long for the CI ports.

Agreed Goodwill would not be suitable  for replacing Pelican at Bilbao - for one thing, her capacity is far too small.

But I do agree with Afellowes, that replacing Goodwill with a second ropax on the Portsmouth - CI route is well overdue.

[seadog]

I must read every post twice!

[Tumnus2010]

BF have announced she will move to the Le Havre route in April to replace Etretat. Not necessarily freight only either.

 

https://brittanyferriesnewsroom.com/brittany-ferries-welcomes-cotentin-back-to-fleet/

 

Edited January 4 by Tumnus2010

[colin]

It would surprise me if they took non freight traffic and passengers, especially in the current Covid climate.

[Gareth]

Thanks T2010, yes it seemed the only gap for her in the schedules.  As Colin says, I can’t see BF taking passengers on Cotentin in her current configuration, and I didn’t read anything into the article that hinted that she might.  There was a phrase “initially freight only” in connection with her Poole stint, but I infer from that that passengers will be carried on the route at the end of Cotentin’s stint (when Barfleur returns).

Replacing Etretat with Cotentin on the now-freight-only Le Havre route makes eminent sense, and it is interesting to read confirmation that Etretat will be leaving the fleet when her charter ends in March.

The other interesting aspect of the article is the reference to the Cherbourg rail link for freight next year - I had been wondering whether the return of Cotentin was, in part, in preparation for an increase in freight sailings from the UK to Cherbourg once that happens, and it seems like that is indeed on the agenda.  Wouldn’t surprise me to see Cotentin switch to a Portsmouth-Cherbourg freight service when this new Cherbourg freight hub comes on stream.

[hf_uk]

19 hours ago, Gareth said:

I can see that, as a business model, it was probably an attractive option for hauliers long before Covid.  As others have said, means drivers spend their time driving on the road rather than sleeping on a ferry.

However, it will have been a very UNattractive option for ferry companies, because you can pretty much treble the turnaround time and so they will get fewer crossings out of the ship.

That said, as far as I know, unaccompanied is pretty much what the whole East Coast freight ferry network is based on (isn’t it? - certainly the extensive and successful Cobelfret network), so it’s a pretty tried and tested model.

I guess what it is not particularly suited to is integration with passenger-carrying sailings in any large-scale way.  So maybe not a surprise that the extensive success of the model on the East Coast has gone hand-in-hand with the demise of passenger ferry services in that arena.

That also means that, for BF, venturing into unaccompanied freight as a prime offering can really only be undertaken with their limited freight-only fleet (once the passenger ferries go back to carrying passengers).

 

What are the proportions of unaccompanied like on Dover-Calais? I presume as the reasons Gareth has mentioned, that they are pretty low due to the rapid turnaround times required?

[David Williams]

1 hour ago, Gareth said:

I can’t see BF taking passengers on Cotentin in her current configuration,

Daytime crossings would be fine for passengers once we are allowed to sit next to each other, 

[Tumnus2010]

All the pics I've seen so far have shown an apparently very lightly loaded Cotentin. Does anyone have more info on how much is being carried? I know it's still early days in the process..

 

Am also wondering what the process is for booking the freight and costs to hauliers? What percentage is the govt recouping (if any) of the costs of shipping this way?

[Timmy]

51 minutes ago, hf_uk said:

What are the proportions of unaccompanied like on Dover-Calais? I presume as the reasons Gareth has mentioned, that they are pretty low due to the rapid turnaround times required?

P&O had proposed that they would stop taking unaccompanied freight in it's last redundancy announcement.  I wonder if there has been a rapid backtracking on that after the Christmas chaos?

[Gareth]

2 minutes ago, Timmy said:

P&O had proposed that they would stop taking unaccompanied freight in it's last redundancy announcement.  I wonder if there has been a rapid backtracking on that after the Christmas chaos?

Was that specifically on Dov-Cal?  I’d have thought unaccompanied would be a much bigger part of their business at Tilbury and Teesport (?).

Unaccompanied freight at Dover must be minimal, I’d have thought.

[Timmy]

28 minutes ago, Gareth said:

Was that specifically on Dov-Cal?  I’d have thought unaccompanied would be a much bigger part of their business at Tilbury and Teesport (?).

Unaccompanied freight at Dover must be minimal, I’d have thought.

It was for Dover-Calais.  There were restrictions in place for the number of unaccompanied trailers per sailing because of the turnaround times so they never carried a huge amount but it did briefly become the only way to ship freight from Dover last month so does have it's uses.

North Sea and Liverpool majority of cargo is unaccompanied and they wouldn't dare drop it at Cairnryan either.

[LHCity]

2 hours ago, Gareth said:

Thanks T2010, yes it seemed the only gap for her in the schedules.  As Colin says, I can’t see BF taking passengers on Cotentin in her current configuration, and I didn’t read anything into the article that hinted that she might.  There was a phrase “initially freight only” in connection with her Poole stint, but I infer from that that passengers will be carried on the route at the end of Cotentin’s stint (when Barfleur returns).

Replacing Etretat with Cotentin on the now-freight-only Le Havre route makes eminent sense, and it is interesting to read confirmation that Etretat will be leaving the fleet when her charter ends in March.

The other interesting aspect of the article is the reference to the Cherbourg rail link for freight next year - I had been wondering whether the return of Cotentin was, in part, in preparation for an increase in freight sailings from the UK to Cherbourg once that happens, and it seems like that is indeed on the agenda.  Wouldn’t surprise me to see Cotentin switch to a Portsmouth-Cherbourg freight service when this new Cherbourg freight hub comes on stream.

For information ETRETAT has broken down again today. Proof is that the quality of the ship has an impact on the attractiveness of the route.

In this article we talk about a return of passengers to Le Havre / Portsmouth in about 6 months. 

https://www.paris-normandie.fr/id152817/article/2020-12-31/le-31-decembre-derniers-preparatifs-avant-le-brexit-pour-les-douanniers-du-havre

Will BARFLEUR stay in Le Havre? Could COTENTIN definitely stay in Cherbourg? Could COTENTIN have a role to play on the France-Ireland links (from Le Havre or Cherbourg ?) ... Could we even imagine a buyout of the HONFLEUR completed in 6 months?

[jonno]

1 hour ago, Timmy said:

P&O had proposed that they would stop taking unaccompanied freight in it's last redundancy announcement.  I wonder if there has been a rapid backtracking on that after the Christmas chaos?

I'm sure I read that the rail gauge for the tunnel has now been aligned with that found in Europe meaning that now they can transport a lot of inter modal freight. I think it was the obstacle for PSA wanting to transport vehicles to the U.K. too hence the ships from Vigo?