Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: New York Maritime College

Two training-ships based on the east coast of the United States are to make calls at Cobh in mid-summer, writes Jehan Ashmore.
First to visit Cork Harbour will be the Maine Maritime Academy's training-ship State of Maine which is to depart its homeport of Castine Harbour, Maine on 3 May and dock at Cobh for a five-day stopover in June.

The call is part of a 55-day training cruise that will include ports in the Mediterranean and also US domestic ports. The itinerary includes Norfolk, Vaginia (6-9 May), Valetta, Malta (25-28 May), Civitavecchia, Italy (31 May-3 June ) Cobh (12-16 June) and to Portland, Maine 25-26 June.

Students, officers and crew will be onboard the 16,000 tonnes State of Maine which is a 500-foot long former oceanographic vessel that served in the US Navy as the USNS Tanner. In 1997 she was converted to accommodate the training needs of the college.

The Maine Maritime Academy was founded in 1941 and enrolls more than 900 students from 35 states and from several foreign countries. Students in the college are awarded A.S., B.S., and M.S. degrees in 15 fields of study.

State of Maine is scheduled to berth at the Port of Cork's deepwater quay at the Cobh Cruise Terminal which is expected to welcome over 50 cruiseships and 100,000 visitors this season. The vessel's departure will be followed by the arrival of the second training-ship the 17,000 tonnes Empire State on 22 June which is to make a shorter two-day stopover.

Since 1989 she has been operated by State University of the New York Maritime College which annually takes cadets across the world onboard the 565-foot vessel to learn the skills in running the ship and the maritime industry.

The former cargoship was built for the States Steamship Company in 1961 as the Oregan at Newport News Shipbuilding and Drydock Company, in Newport News, Virginia. Despite conversion for her current role she retains most of her original features and she presents a distinctive profile with the superstructure positioned amidships between the cargo-holds.

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).