Brittany Ferries has confirmed to our colleagues from Shippax it will charter from Stena Line a new vessel for its popular Spain - Great Britain route beginning 2020.
Antoine Hurtaut
Brittany Ferries has reached an agreement with Swedish company Stena Line to charter the third of its four future E-Flexer class vessel. These four Ro-Pax vessels have been ordered by Stena Line back in April 2016 to a Chinese shipyard, in order to operate its Ireland - Great Britain routes. However, due to a change of plan the company has decided to offer for charter one of these vessels.
Therefore, Brittany Ferries has signed with Stena a five-year bareboat charter, with an option to extend the charter or to purchase the ship.
The 927-passengers ferry’s design will be altered to meet Brittany Ferries’ requirements, implying the fitting of extra cabins aboard. However, she will keep her 3 100 lm garage, making her the largest vessel in terms of car-carrying capacity to be operated by the Breton operator.
This new 48 000 GT vessel has been commissioned in order to cope with the growing traffic on the Great Britain - Spain route.
She will succeed in the fleet to Baie de Seine, who will be sent back to her owner DFDS Seaways in April 2019. It is also very likely the new built will replace the chartered MN Pelican, whose charter has recently been extended until 2019 in order to provide additional freight-capacity on the Spain - Great Britain route. Until the delivery of the new-built, Etretat, also chartered to Stena Line, is likely to remain in the fleet.
The new ferry, which will be 212 m long and 27,8 m wide, will be equipped with exhaust scrubbers albeit she will have dual-fuel engines, enabling her to be propelled with LNG. The steel cutting ceremony of the first vessel of the E-Flexer class has taken place on Friday last week.
It is the second vessel to be commissioned on behalf of Brittany Ferries in less than six months, after the LNG-powered Honfleur which will enter service in June 2019.
Source : HOLTHOF, Philippe. "Brittany Ferries confirms charter of Chinese-built E-Flexer from Stena", Shippax, 24th August 2017. Available at www.shippax.com