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Displaying items by tag: Brexit Timed

A shipping company based in Scotland is planning to start a daily ferry service linking Rosyth with the Netherlands.

Operations according to BBC News Scotland, would start around the time that Brexit is scheduled by the Westminster government.

That could make such a route a vital link for freight, if there are delays on crossings further south.

The ferry service would run between the Fife port and Groningen Seaport at Eemshaven, in the far north of the Netherlands near the German border.

News of the service first broke through Dutch news service RTV Noord, and was confirmed by David Kellas, director at TEC Offshore.

Offshore Activities

He explained the Perthshire-based company already has a wide portfolio of offshore activities.

These include drill ships, dive boats, floating oil and gas production vessels and floating accommodation for offshore workers.

He told BBC Scotland: "Eeemshaven is a more central port than people give it credit for".

However, it is not usually used for passenger services, and arrangements for that are still being discussed.

The operation would involve chartering two ships, each carrying up to 2,000 passengers.

Zeebrugge Service

There was a passenger ferry service between Rosyth and Zeebrugge in Belgium between 2002 and 2010. It became a freight-only operation until 2018 as Afloat previously reported. 

For more click this link about the North Sea ferry development.

Published in Ferry

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).