M/V Penn Ar Bed

Penn Ar Bed was ordered by Bretagne Angeterre Irlande SA in late-1972 shortly after the company was established. Indeed, it began its business using the smaller RoRo Cargo Ship Kerisnel, that was not able of carrying passengers although there was a strong demand after the United Kingdom join to the Common Market. Therefore, the company ordered a new RoPax ferry that would also be able to carry passengers.

Penn Ar Bed was launched on 17th May 1973, and was delivered to Bretagne Angleterre Irlande SA in 1974, replacing Kerisnel. Penn Ar Bed’s name comes from the Breton translation of Finistere, meaning the End of the Land. It is the name of a Department, located on Western Brittany and where the company was established.

The introduction of Penn Ar Bed enabled the company carrying more passengers, although her passenger capacity of only 250 passengers soon appeared to be too small to cope with the growing passenger traffic.

Actually, Bretagne Angleterre Irlande S.A. was aimed at the freight market, and did not order Penn Ar Bed as a passenger-vessel, but as a freight vessel with accommodations for a few passengers. In August 1975, Penn Ar Bed was transferred to the new Plymouth – Saint-Malo service, replaced by Prince de Bretagne on the Roscoff service. The Saint-Malo – Plymouth service was created to secure Brittany Ferries’ access to the new French port, after the attempt of TT Lines establishing a service from Southampton to the French City, despite the initial pledges of Saint-Malo’s local authorities about granting Brittany Ferries a monopoly on the port. Moreover, it seemed vital for the company's future growth to operate services from Saint-Malo.

Although Penn Ar Bed has been operated in August 1976 on the Saint-Malo - Portsmouth service, it seems that she spend most of her career from 1977 on the Saint-Malo - Plymouth service.

Penn Ar Bed was sold to Rolf Erikson in 1984, and renamed Sveno Marina. A few months later, she was sold to Marlines which renamed her Princess M. Sold to Alimar SRL in 1989, she was then renamed Lilly R. She was then sold a few other times before being purchased by Mohamed Hamdan Abdulla, which renamed her Jabal Ali 1. She was broken up in the mid-2000s.