Well what can I say, I am a little cheesed off about how P&O are cutting their services. P&O stated to the press that as of march 2005 all ferry services from Portsmouth to France will be axed, this resulted in many job losses on both sides of the channel. Brittany Ferries the company which is funded by the French government has announced that it is to take over the charter of the Pride of Portsmouth and Pride of Leharve, both are 33,000 gross tons and are worthy vessels for any company. The Pride of Cherbourg is owned by Irish Ferries who P&O charted her off, P&O are sub chartering her out to any one who wants her. One point what I am pleased about is the fact that the Pride of Bilbao (ex Olympia) is staying on from Portsmouth to Bilbao in northern Spain.

Many years ago Otto Thoresen sailed on a ageing British Railways ferry and was not too impressed how they had the market and could charge what ever they liked, and his words was that you don’t have to be a genius to do better than this so he decided to prove it. Along came the Viking 1, the Viking 1 sailed from Southampton to Leharve and Cherbourg. This vessel was promptly followed by the Viking 2 as the routes were becoming more and more successful a third ship the Viking 3 was put into the service. Not all that long after the Viking 4 which was the companies first sole purpose freight vessel came into service. The Viking 1 and the Viking 2 were sisters and exactly the same layout and were around the region of 2,000 Gross tons(this may not be accurate as I don’t have its exact tonnage) the Viking 3 was different in layout and slightly different in appearance as it had more windows in the forward part the superstructure. After a number of good seasons at Southampton the ferry crossings were switched to Portsmouth as it cut the crossing time by an hour or so.

The Viking Voyager and Viking Viscount built in 1976 and around 7,000 Gross tons entered service on the Felixstowe Zeebrugge service operating alongside the freighters Nordic Ferry and the Baltic Ferry, these ships were rebuilt with extra passenger facilities and released the Vikings to go to Portsmouth and join their sisters. They then took over the Portsmouth Cherbourg service which allowed the sale of the older ships. When P&O took over Townsend Thoresen in 1987 nothing changed until 1989 when P&O decided that all vessels would be named Pride of, the Viking Voyager became the Pride of Cherbourg and the Viking Viscount Became the Pride of Winchester. Both vessels were sold in 1994 when P&O took over the ex Oula car Ferries Oula Britannia and Oula Hollandia now the Pride of Portsmouth and Pride of Leharve respectively.

P&O now struggling more than ever under the pressure of Brittany Ferries and the low cost airlines and of course the axing of duty free needed desperately to get some much needed trade out of Portsmouth, the Pride of Bilbao introduced in 1993 been the ex Olympia of Viking Line just short of 37, 000 gross tons plodded along on the Bilbao run quite happily whilst the French crossings were loosing money had over fist.

Whilst Portsmouth was struggling, Dover was having a Hard time against SeaFrance and the channel tunnel and have also cut two ships from this service. Meanwhile up in Hull they took the delivery of the Largest ever car ferries the Pride of Hull and The Pride of Rotterdam (see my other review) and are quite happily making money like no tomorrow.

It would be a shame to see a end of P&O ferries but i fear if nothing is done about it, it will happen, the English Channel ones been the first. P&O will always be about in other markets what they have like the container service P&O Neddloyd and their dry bulk services. Only the future will tell lets hope that a company with a long and proud history will pull through this time.