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Displaying items by tag: Annual Seafarers Conference

The National Maritime College of Ireland (NMCI) has announced the launch of its second annual Seafarers' Conference which is take place on 23 February and be held in Co. Limerick.

This year's theme is 'Thriving Fishing, Thriving Offshore Wind, Thriving Ports' and the hybrid event is to take place in the Castletroy Park Hotel. The venue is situated close to Limerick city and is just minutes off the M7 Dublin motorway.

The conference, sponsored by Simply Blue Group, will once again bring together representatives from Ireland’s maritime industry, supply chain workforce, and training & education institutions to explore the opportunities that exist to support and grow the fishing and offshore wind industries in Ireland in tandem.

Speakers at the event will include Caroline Bocquel, Interim CEO, BIM, Noel Cunniffe, CEO Wind Energy Ireland, Brian Hogan, Chief Surveyor Marine Survey Office, and Norah Parke, Project Coordinator Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation Ltd.

Further speakers will be announced soon.

Among the topics for discussion include what the fishing industry needs to thrive; the policy regime for renewable energy; implementation of the ‘future skills needs report’; the ecosystem impacts of offshore wind farms; and the future for Ireland’s fishing ports.

To register in attending this conference in-person, click HERE or alternatively to attend 'online' visit this LINK.

Published in Ports & Shipping

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).