STX Europe, Finland. Some of the more eagle-eyed amongst you may have noticed in last months photo update that the ‘P&O’ painted on the Spirit of Britain looked a bit odd – it turns out it was not finished! So here is a picture with the finished livery and a photo of our ’sparkly clean’ dedicated car deck…..
Spirit of britain, now in her final livery
The dedicated card deck. Without lorries and coaches, hopefully the car deck will remain this clean for years to come!
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my daughter is 18 on 21st january, & i am considering taking her to dover on the maiden voyage what time is the first crossing? & can the public be on the maiden voyage.
Hi Linda, Yes the public can book on the maiden voyage. Good luck getting an 18 year old out of bed at that time in the morning though!
When is it first sailing from Calais to Dover? I’m curious to see her. She looks magnificent.
Hi Gunther, The Spirit of Britain is currently scheduled to enter service on the 21st January. However, there is some debate whether or not her maiden voyage will be her early morning (04:15hrs) allocated departure from Dover or her next departure (09:20hrs).
Depending on the outcome of this decision, the first sailing from Calais will be either 07:40hrs or 12:30hrs local time.
Is there going to be an upper level ramp for the top car deck or are cars going to have load/unload on the same deck as the upper freight deck, like on the DFDS Dunkerque ships? Otherwise isn’t it going to make getting off longer with twice as much traffic wanting to use the same upper level of the ramp?
Hi Kevin, Currently we are restrained by the infrastructure within Dover and Calais harbours. Therefore, we will still only have two (upper & lower) ramps available for discharge. With twin lane ramps both cars and freight can be discharged at the same time. On sailings with heavy tourist loads, there are other options available to us as unlike the competition we have two ramps both bow and stern.
The ships have been ‘future-proofed’ with the future development of Dover and Calais harbours in mind. The ships can easily be converted to allow for ‘tourist only’ side loading similar to our Hull-Rotterdam vessels.
On the second photograph, you mention “The dedicated card deck”, l hope you mean “Car deck”, otherwise l see a lot of card tables being set up!
Hi Michael, lol, now there’s a thought!