M/V Havelet

In 1975, Brittany Ferries chartered in Prince de Bretagne for service from Plymouth to Roscoff. Although she didn’t bring full satisfaction due to low passenger capacity and her poor sea-keeping ability, Brittany Ferries was interested by her shape and decided to order a ship that would share it.

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, Cornouailles soon appeared to be too small to cope with the growing traffic.

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

In 1989, Truckline stopped operating Cornouailles on the Cherbourg-en-Cotentin – Poole service, replacing her with Tregastel. Cornouailles was then chartered by British Channel Islands Ferries as Havelet for service between Weymouth and the Channel Islands. She was to be operated only at summers. This service was later transferred to Poole, with Havelet operating alongside Rozel on this service.

Havelet benefited from a major overhaul in 1990. During this overhaul, she was added aft sponsons to increase her stability. Her outdoor deck was also extended towards her stern, and she was re-registered in Nassau.

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

Once BCIF has been purchased by Commodore in 1994, Havelet’s charter was transferred to Condor Ferries, which introduced her on their Weymouth – Channel Islands service in order to provide an alternative service to the High Speed Service operated with Condor 10, Condor 11 and Condor 12.

However, the company decided in 1997 to focus its business on the High Speed service with the introduction of Condor Express. Therefore, Havelet discontinued service with Condor Ferries in early-1997. However, due to the numerous engine failures and weather-related cancellations of Condor Express, Condor Ferries was forced to purchase Havelet in late-1997, in order to keep its operating licence that had been proposed to other operators. Havelet was to be operated as a backup vessel until the delivery of a new purpose-built RoPax ferry in early-1999, that would have replaced both Havelet and Island Commodore.

Therefore, Havelet was laid up in Weymouth after Commodore Clipper’ introduction in early-1999 and offered for sale.

In August 2000, Condor Ferries sold Havelet to Prekookeanska Plovidbla, the parent company of Montenegro Lines. Havelet was renamed Sveti Stefan and allocated on the Bar – Bari service. Sveti Stefan performed her last sailing on this route on 16th April 2013, before being sent to Aliaga beach two days later. Sveti Stefan arrived there on 23rd April, ready for scrapping.