Advertisement

EUROPEAN ROUTES: Cash for Brittany Ferries and LD Lines

The latest round of funding from the European Union’s Marco Polo scheme, designed to take freight off the roads, is supporting Brittany Ferries’ and LD Lines’ routes from England and France to Northern Spain. Brittany Ferries’ ‘Gulfstream Motorway of the Sea’ serving Bilbao and Santander receives €5.57 million over three years, while LD’s St Nazaire-Gijon route, launched last September, gets €4.17 million.

Ustica Line’s Spain-Italy link between Almeria and Livorno gets €3.57 million, but there was disappointment for Fastnet Line’s re-established Cork-Swansea connection, while other operators turned down included Acciona, Finnlines and Grimaldi.

Twice-weekly Portsmouth-Bilbao sailings were started by Brittany Ferries at the end of March using Cap Finistere, with this vessel and Pont-Aven each making a Portsmouth-Santander trip. Pont-Aven also runs weekly from Plymouth in addition to freight sailings to and from Poole by Cotentin. Cap Finistere is using a new Spanish base 4km closer to the sea at Zierbena and with better motorway access than the berth at Santurzi.

LD Lines changed its St Nazaire-Gijon vessel, with the 400-passenger/130-truck Norman Bridge replaced from 18 April by the 800-passenger/200-unit Baltic Amber, which was moved from the Mediterranean after a brief spell on LD’s Marseille-Tunis route.

The Visentini-built Baltic Amber, completed in 2007, ran for Balearia between Barcelona and Palma, Mallorca as Borja until an early 2010 move to the Baltic. Service there for Ave Line and was followed by a spell with DFDS Lisco between Kiel and Klaipeda as a temporary replacement for the fire-hitLisco Gloria.

Ships Montly - January 2024

World’s first hybrid solar-powered inland shipping vessel

Dutch solar innovator Wattlab has delivered a breakthrough energy system for HGK Shipping’s cargo vessel Blue Marlin, marking a major step forward in sustainable...
Advertisement

Related articles

World’s first hybrid solar-powered inland shipping vessel

Dutch solar innovator Wattlab has delivered a breakthrough energy system for HGK Shipping’s cargo vessel Blue Marlin, marking...

Rebuilt Stena Foreteller returns to service with enhanced efficiency

In the end of July 2025, the ro-ro ship Stena Foreteller returned to service on the Europoort/Rotterdam-Immingham route...

Outfitting of the Nexans Electra CLV begins at Ulstein Verft

The hull of the state-of-the-art DP3 cable-laying vessel Nexans Electra arrived at Ulstein Verft on 5 July 2025....

Historic cruise ship Astoria goes for scrapping

The world's oldest cruise vessel Astoria finally reaches the end of the line. After 77 years of service,...