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Displaying items by tag: Change of Course

It has been over 24 hours since any yacht, competing in the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race finished writes Louay Habib. However a rush is expected for the second half of the day, with three boats expected in the early hours of tomorrow morning and the majority accounted for by Sunday.

There are still 12 yachts racing in the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland Race but Keith Gibbs C&C 115, Change of Course pulled into Dingle on the west coast of Ireland in the early hours of this morning with a broken forestay.

The next boat to finish should be Chaz Ivill's Grand Soleil 54, John B who is expected to finish in the early hours of tomorrow morning and claim third place in IRC Zero. Clipper 68, Hull & Humber look to be getting the better of their sistership, Edinburgh Inspiring Capital. At 1400 BST Hull & Humber had 108 miles to go and were averaging eight knots giving them an estimated finish time of 0400 tomorrow.

At 1400 BST, the Army Association's A 40, British Soldier was passed the Lizard with 195 miles to go. Over the last 24 hours, they have stretched out their lead on the water and look likely to take line honours for Class IRC One. Steven Anderson's First 40.7, Encore is 21 miles behind British Soldier but still leads the class after corrected time.

In IRC Two, Harry Heijst owner of S&S 41 Winsome, had a proper birthday celebration on board. With balloons and the satisfaction of opening up a big lead on rivals, Swan 44 Selene, owned by Adrian Lower. At 1400 BST, Winsome is 28 miles ahead of Selene and even further ahead after corrected time. Selene took up a very westerly position yesterday but the move has not paid off. Winsome with Sevenstar's Managing Director, Richard Klabbers on board, is very much the yacht to beat in IRC Two.

Published in Rd Britain & Ireland

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).