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Fighting back with Norman Voyager
After years of waiting, she is about to arrive. The Norman Voyager, LD Lines' enormous new passenger and freight vessel, is scheduled to dock in Portsmouth next month.
The ship, capable of carrying 800 passengers, 200 cars and 120 lorries at a time, will sail into port on November 5 for berthing tests, before beginning her maiden voyage from Portsmouth to Le Havre the following day.
After the port was dealt a crippling blow when P&O axed most of its routes from Portsmouth, the new route looks set to buoy the city's status as one of the UK's leading ports, by reinstating full capacity on the Le Havre route.
P&O scaled down most of its operations in September 2005, cutting its two Le Havre routes, two Cherbourg routes, and its fastcraft service to Cherbourg and Caen, keeping only its Bilbao route.
The port has been candid about the change, calling it a 'huge blow' to business.
Although year-on-year figures for traffic and foot passengers to the Isle of Wight have been relatively stable, and the Isle of Wight Hovercraft service and Gosport Ferry have seen passenger numbers rise, the figures for the services to Spain and France are grim.
In 2000, 3,305,840 passengers and 320,741 freight vehicles passed over the English Channel from Portsmouth.
Seven years on, the 2007 figures show just 2,163,111 passengers made the journey, and 268,523 freight vehicles.
The decline is particularly pronounced after the P&O pull-out.
There have been piecemeal items of good news for the port, from Gefco's decision to use the port as its UK entry point for the prestigious French-built Citroen C5, to the arrival of the new banana boat New Breeze on June 18, and the chartering of the world's largest refrigerated ship, the 165m Ditlev Lauritzen, by the Geest freight company.
But the resurrection of the second Le Havre service is being seen as a breakthrough in a fightback by the port.
Phil Gadd, ferry port manager, said: 'This new ship is a big freight carrier, although it's difficult to forecast what exact figures will be. We believe this will be the beginning of a recovery.
'With LD Lines, we've got back up to capacity on the Le Havre route.'
LD Lines' general manager Christophe Santoni told BusinessWeek certain changes to working hours on the continent were expected to boost the Le Havre route.
He said: 'We started our service in October 2005 when P&O pulled out from the western channel.
'It was expected Brittany would step in and take over the service, but when they didn't, we were contacted by the port service in Le Havre, who asked if we could take it over.'
The company agreed, but there was just one problem – they did not have a ship.
Unable to find a suitable candidate in the world market, they took control of the P&O vessel that was already running the route, and hurriedly refitted her – thus the Norman Spirit was born.
In 2007, it ran at virtually full capacity, ferrying 293,000 passengers, 108,000 cars, and 36,000 trucks across the Channel via Portsmouth.
Mr Santoni said the arrival of the Norman Voyager was the realisation of a long-awaited plan for the 156-year-old company LD Lines.
He said: 'We believe with the new ship we can offer a very competitive service.
'There are still 400,000 trucks per years coming from Spain and south-west France to the UK.
'New EU legislation about driving hours will mean drivers can drive for a maximum of nine hours each day, and stop for 11 hours.
'It makes no sense coming from Spain and passing by Le Havre to go on to Calais.
'Although we expect the credit crisis to impact the overall demand, we still feel we have a lot of potential to get those trucks coming up from Spain.'
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Weather for Portsmouth
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Today
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Temperature: 15 C to 23 C
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