Celtic Link to start new Portsmouth (UK)-Cherbourg (France) ferry service

Irish budget ferry operator Celtic Link Ferries (Ireland) Ltd has announced that it is to start a new daily, year-round passenger/freight service linking the south coast UK port of Portsmouth with Cherbourg in northern France from October this year.

The Irish operator says that it has acquired a new, as yet unnamed, vessel for the service, capable of carrying 1,000 passengers, 500 cars or 130 trucks. The new ferry will be British flagged and British crewed and will operate between Portsmouth and Cherbourg during the week and will replace Celtic Link’s current vessel Diplomat on the week-end sailing between Cherbourg and Rosslare, southern Ireland, sailing from France on Fridays and returning from Ireland on Saturdays. With a service speed of 24 knots, the crossing time between France and Ireland will be just 16 hours.

The passenger/freight ferry Diplomat will maintain the Tuesdays and Thursdays sailings from Rosslare to Cherbourg and the Wednesdays and Sundays sailings from Cherbourg to Rosslare. Diplomat will be used on the Portsmouth-Cherbourg during the week-end while the new ferry operates the France-Ireland service, giving passengers and freight customers the guarantee of a daily departure from either Cherbourg or Portsmouth.

Celtic Link tried to start a Portsmouth-Cherbourg service in October 2006 using the former DFDS train ferry Klaipeda, which was converted in Greece for the new service as the Celtic Mist. However, the vessel fell foul of the UK’s Maritime & Coastguard agency (MCA) when she arrived in Portsmouth and was not allowed to sail with passengers.

The new service is claimed to be the cheapest of all operators on the Western Channel and Irish continental routes and will see Celtic Link going head to head with Brittany Ferries and LD Lines. Brittany Ferries already has well established services from Portsmouth to Caen and St. Malo in France, as well as a seasonal fast ferry service to Cherbourg, while low cost operator LD Lines currently operates a two ship service between Portsmouth and Le Havre, and is about to switch its Le Havre-Rosslare service to Cherbourg. Sphere: Related Content