Ferry news from Euroferries, LDLines and a maritime disaster

White Cliffs of Dover and Dover Castle

Three different bits of ferry related news that I picked up whilst surfing through Google news today ....

First up, after all the long delays of getting the Euroferries service from Ramsgate to Boulogne up and running it was good to read on thisiskent.co.uk that the Euroferries ferry service is due to start on time on the 14th November. The article reports that the Bonanza Express which has been languishing in the Canary Islands for most of this year has finally been repainted in Euroferries colours, work on the dockside ramps has been completed, and the Ramsgate tax free shop is also ready for customers.

Last month I wrote about LD Lines transferring the Norman Arrow fast cat from Boulogne onto the LeHavre service and thisiskent leads with news of some of the fallout from this service change as a number of the LD Lines Norman Arrow crew are being made redundant. Some crew will transfer to the conventional ferry and some will be retained whilst the boat is laid up for the winter, but presumably they could then be at risk afterwards?
The article closes with commenting that a number of those affected were previously employees of SpeedFerries which of course went bust a year ago.

And finally KentOnline describes a major maritime disaster exercise that took place on Wednesday when volunteer members of the UK Maritime and Response Group practised some of the emergency drills they'd have to invoke were there to be a major marine emergency. The simulation covered a fire and cross channel passenger ferry evacuation in the Dover Straits. Let's hope they never have to do it for real.