Spectacular End For Ostend Spirit

Holy shipwrecks! If you've ever wondered what it would be like to stand on a beach with a ruddy great cross channel ferry steaming towards you at full tilt, then this is the video for you!

The ferry in question is none other than our own Ostend Spirit, which, after we forked out £700,000 in 2010 to dredge the Port of Ramsgate to accommodate it, spent a grand total of, er, not very long operating on behalf of the now defunct TransEuropa Ferries between here and Oostende. The very same Ostend Spirit, in fact, that was occupied by its Slovenian crew in Tilbury for weeks while they demanded unpaid wages after TransEuropa sank without trace, taking £3.4m of our council tax with it.

The very, very same Ostend Spirit that could have been seized in our port and sold to recoup some of our decimated dosh, had not Our Harvey been out to lunch when the harbour master rang to tell him it was about to set sail and request permission to nab it.

Well, it's junk now, having been sold to a breakers yard in Turkey for scrap, which is where the video comes from.

Meanwhile TDC's spin doctors have been rotating at 20,000rpm to bring you the news that Ramsgate has been granted £161K of eurofunding 'to build on the success of this increasingly busy port'. Well, that's what it says in the Maritime Journal, and who am I to disagree?!!

We're Illegally Parked On The Road To Nowhere

It was such a lovely weekend here in the Millionaires' Playground that I decided to whip out my old throbber and give it a bit of a thrashing!

Now that the powers-that-be have opened up the barrier between the harbour and the port, us millionaires are spoilt for choice - take the high road out of town, along London Road, or the low road along Military Road, then out along the port access road and through our lovely, multi-million pound tunnel. I prefer the latter as, fittingly for the Cannes of Kent, it feels just like taking a spin along the jolly old Corniche!

Oddly, though, there were still a number of illegally parked foreign lorries waiting for ferries, which ferries, as we now know, will probably never come. The port itself was deserted. Not a sausage...

To their credit, Kent Highways have done some excellent work installing wooden bollards along the cliff, thus preventing lorries parking illegally on that side. But that, the £32m on the tunnel, £87m on the new dual carriageways around Cliffsend, and the £500,000 spent by TDC on dredging the port for the Ostend Spirit all seem a little, er, pointless now.

I guess it's a case of 'will the last lorry leaving Port Ramsgate please turn out the lights.' Oh, silly me. Kent County Council have already thought of that one too!

Ostend Of An Era?

Effortlessly piloting my graceful Bentley Continental Flying Toss back to the Millionaires' Playground this afternoon, following a week at my Chelsea pad for the funeral of the century and a recording of the new series of Celebrity Nipples for Dave, I couldn't help but notice that our lovely TransEuropa Ferries in our lovely Royal Harbour/Port had been replaced by a floating hotel!

It got me to pondering what was going on with TransEuropa Ferries (TEF), as I rarely see the old tubs wending their way across to Belgium from my captain's lookout here at the cliff top mansion these days. So I emailed my old chums with the anoraks and binoculars on the other side of the briny, and this is their response:

You may well have noticed that Ramsgate port is 'ferryless' at the moment. Yesterday the Ostend Spirit (formerly the Pride of Calais) returned to their owners P&O for lay up at Tilbury. Strange that the Thanet press didn't pick up the story.

In short Transeuropa have some problems, and it seems that the owners the Dias brothers are wrapping up the company their father left them. They have sold two ferries that operated in the Med to Russian interests. The two ferries were moneymakers as they were chartered to the biggest Spanish ferry operator TRASMED for service between Spain and Morroco.

If TEF goes then at least 10 jobs will go directly with some indirectly such as security, cleaning and jobs at Orbit import-export, based at Ramsgate ferry port.

Blimey! Now, following a little, er, misunderstanding with Euroferries (Where are they now?! - Ed.) a few years back, I hasten to add that no-one is saying that TransEuropa have sunk. Let's be absolutely clear on that. But it does seem a little fishy! (Geddit??!!!!!???!!!??!!!!!!!!)

Especially as a visit to TEF's website is currently resulting in a big, fat empty load of white space.

Meanwhile I suppose we must welcome C-Bed to the Cannes of Kent. They provide floating hotels for windfarm workers, enabling them to be on the job 24/7. According to C-Bed's website, they use 'leather and other luxurious materials' to make sure their floatels 'are a place to unwind, sit back and get ready for the next day without worrying about cleaning, cooking, or getting to or from work'.

Fit for a millionaire, I'd say!

Click here for more on the current state of TEF in the Belgian newspaper De Tijd.
Update: The Gazunder has finally caught up with this story. Click here for more.

Ferries cAsh In!

Just a quick reminder to anyone out there who may have been stranded by the ongoing ban on flights that there's still room on our lovely ferries if you need to get to the continent.

LD Lines say they have capacity for cars in both directions between Ramsgate and Ostend.

Click here for more

Primrose Bows Out

Here's a sight we won't be seeing off Ramsgate's trendy East Cliff again. TransEuropa's Primrose is to be retired to sunnier climes in Italy. Reader Frank from the Ostend Ferry Crew writes:

The TEF ferry Primrose has been sold to a Italian company called Blu Navy for use between the ports of Piombino (Tuscany) and Portoferraio (Elba). The journey will take one hour.

She received bunkers [What that? Ed] this morning and her TEF logo on her funnel has been painted out. She is expected to sail tonight for the last time from Oostende [Ostend in old money] to Livorno where she will be renamed and will receive a internal upgrade.

In 1991 she was withdrawn with the arrival of the Prins Filip (Ostend Spirit), now history repeats itself. From 1991 to 1997 she was laid up as a spare vessel to cover for refits. This time she will begin a new career.

As Frank points out, many ships of the Primrose's age are now part of a new ship or car, or holding up buildings as metal bars in reinforced concrete. As least she's been recycled as a, er, ferry. Good luck to all who sail in her!

You Put Your Ferry In, Your Ferry Out, In, Out, In, Out, And Then Send It To Dover

Well I needn't have worried about all the roadworks on the Thanet Way holding up the hordes of happy Easter travellers heading for our lovely port to board the new superduperferry. It's currently operating out of Dover.

Apparently one of LD Lines' other vessels bust a bowsprit or something, so they've diverted the Ostend Spirit to the Dover Boulogne run. Just when you thought they might be making hay in Ramsgate, what with SeaFrance on strike and Operation Stack in place, they send it to Dover. Kuh!

It's unclear how long it'll be known as the Boulogne Spirit, but at least it demonstrates that, whatever the joint venture arrangements between LD and TransEuropa are, LD get first dibs. It's also left me wondering why more than half a mill of our taxpayers sovs were spent dredging the port for the Ostend Spirit when it's only managed a few trips out of Ramsgate. Rumour is that Thanet Council, who run the port, wanted some, er, financial reassurance from Eurof*****s before they lifted a finger (quite wisely in my opinion). But did they get any guarantees on the Ostend Spirit? Or have they reverted to their old bollock-dropping routine with this one?

Click here for Ostend Spirit's current position on marinetraffic.com
Click here for Dover movements on marinetraffic.com

Now you see it... Ostend Spirit in Ramsgate last week
(Photo: Ashley Baldry)

Ostend Spirit - First Ramsgate Photo

Reader Ken has sent me this photo which he took about an hour ago of the Ostend Spirit in Ramsgate. It should be chuffing back to Belgium about now, ready to return to Ramsgate with its first paying passengers tomorrow morning.

It may only be a conventional craft, but it got here a lot quicker than that blinkin' fast ferry!

That's The Spirit!

I'm indebted to those splendid chaps at the Oostende (Ostend in old money) Ferries Forum for these glimpses of the Ostend Spirit, the new LD Lines superduperferry which is due to enter service between Ramsgate and Ostend this coming Saturday, 27 March.

I'm told it's hard to get any closer to the vessel, which is currently undergoing preparations in Ostend. But these pictures certainly give you a sense of the scale of the thing. It's several orders of magnitude larger than any of the current TransEuropa tubs, and probably at the very limit of what our lovely port can handle. Let's hope the dredging's been done properly!

Of course, in her previous incarnation as the Prins Filip she used to ply the Ostend Ramsgate route in the 90s, so we know she'll fit. It's just that, thanks to our beloved council, a lot less water has flowed under the bridge since then, if you get my drift!