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    The old days of everybody hurtling backwards and forwards across the Dover Strait are long gone. The price of fuel has gone through the roof and every expedient is being explored to reduce consumption. Reducing speed by just a few knots effects a dramatic saving. It lengthens the voyage time marginally and is compensated for by reducing the turnaround time in port to maintain the same schedule.

    The alternative is to put prices up very substantially which is not in the interest of the travelling public or of the ferry companies who might thereby lose custom to their competitors. The principal competitor is the tunnel who are unaffected by the rise in the price of oil as they are powered by electricity from the nuclear power system in France. They also have the benefit of having had seven tenths of the cost of construction wiped off. If the ferry companies similarly only had to pay 30% of the price of construction of new ferries with the remaining 70% written off then it would be a different ballpark.

    Nevertheless, even the tunnel is losing money in the present economic climate. The big two ferry companies, P&O and DFDS, are little more than breaking even. SeaFrance is losing money despite huge cuts in ships and crew. Up until now they have been bankrolled by the state through their owner, SNCF. Both Eurotunnel and P&O have raised objections to these subsidies as unfair competition and the EU looks set to prohibit a futher massive proposed injection of funds. The French unions are adamantly opposed to any further cuts and the prospect of bankruptcy looms for SeaFrance.

    P.S. Howard, the DFDS ship in the top photo is indeed my ship, the Dover Seaways. The little white dot on the front of the funnel is a new electric whistle we fitted a few months ago after our old one blew itself apart in dense fog. The Korean manufacturer SARACOM had gone out of business so we had to fit an equivalent from Kockum Sonics. The Delft Seaways and the Dunkerque Seaways have the original black whistles. Not a lot of people know that!

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