M/V Cornouailles

In 1975, Brittany Ferries chartered in Prince de Bretagne for service from Plymouth to Roscoff. Although she did not bring full satisfaction due to low passenger capacity, Brittany Ferries was interested by her design and decided to order a ship that would share it, although Prince de Bretagne was not good sea keeper.

Cornouailles was delivered to the company on 24th May 1977, and entered service on the Roscoff – Plymouth service the following day. However, despite her bigger passenger capacity than Prince de Bretagne’s one, she soon appeared to be too small to cope with the growing traffic.

Thus, Cornouailles was replaced in 1984 by the larger Benodet, and from 1985 by Tregastel. She was then chartered out to SNCF for service between Dieppe and Newhaven. In 1986, she established for Brittany Ferries a freight-only service between Ouistreham and Porstmouth, before being transferred to Brittany Ferries’ subsidiary Truckline. She enabled the opening of the first passenger service between Cherbourg-en-Cotentin and Poole.

Replaced by Tregastel and Corbière on the Cherbourg-en-Cotentin – Poole service in 1989, she was transferred to British Channel Islands Ferries. Renamed Havelet, she was from then allocated on the Weymouth – Channel Islands service at summers.

Havelet was chartered in by Brittany Ferries in 1992, and proved to be an unstable ship during this charter. Indeed, whilst she was leaving Cork, heading to Roscoff, she was faced with a wave of an unusual size. After having been hit by this wave, Havelet was close from sinking, however the only damages were eventually made on the cars she was carrying. She had to return to Cork to enable repairs, and to enable the Irish coastguards to conduct an enquiry about the incident.

Once BCIF was acquired by Commodore in 1994, Havelet was transferred to Condor Ferries’ feet. Condor Ferries operated with her a conventional service from Weymouth to the Channel Islands, alongside Condor 10, Condor 11 and Condor 12, also serving as a replacement ship when the fast crafts failed.

However, due to Condor Ferries’ goal of operating only high speed services, she was laid up in 1997 with the delivery of Condor Express and offered for charter by her owner (which was not Condor Ferries at the time). However, Condor Ferries had to purchase her at the end of 1997. Indeed, Condor Express proved to be unreliable and the Islands’ government forced Condor Ferries to purchase her and maintain her as a backup to the high speed ferries fault and weather-related cancellations until the delivery of a new conventional ferry. If Condor Ferries had not purchased Havelet, its operating contract would have been cancelled.

In 1999, Condor Ferries was delivered a new ship which replaced both Havelet and Island Commodore, named Commodore Clipper. Being useless to Condor Ferries, she was laid up in Weymouth, offered for sell.