Brittany Ferries’ Mont St. Michel returned to service complete with her giant exhaust scrubber system on 18th December. She had arrived at Cherbourg from Santander’s Astander Shipyard on 10th December for restoring and operated a special 1400 Cherbourg-Portsmouth to resume service. The Pont Aven departed Portsmouth for Cherbourg on 4th January to de-store prior to sailing to Gdansk for refit and the installation of her scrubber system. The Armorique headed for dry dock the same week, travelling to the Astander yard in Santander. She too will receive a scrubber system. A major employment dispute is threatening Brittany Ferries services as the Worker’s Council is taking court action. Curiously most of the workers appear to be largely on the side of the company and want the court action to be stopped. The Pont Aven’s Christmas and New Year Cruises were cancelled over fears that this action could disrupt the special trips. CalMac is to make the Ardrossan- Campbeltown summer ferry service permanent from 2016.

A pilot service, linking North Ayrshire and the Kintyre peninsula, has operated for the past three years. The service has proved popular and transported an average of over 10,000 passengers and 2,000 cars per year.

DFDS Seaways announced in a surprise move on 11th December that its contract for the operation of the publicly owned route between Dieppe and Newhaven had been extended by two years until the end of 2017. The contract covers ship management and route operations. The previous contract between DFDS and SMPAT (Syndicat Mixte de Promotion de l’Activité Transmanche) expired at the end of 2015. The route deploys two ro-pax ships owned by SMPAT, the Cote D’Albatre and the Seven Sisters. The annual revenue of the route is around DKK 300m. In 2015 the service carried around 400,000 passengers, 150,000 cars and 50,000 trucks, the best results since the Département took over in 2000.

Hellenic Seaways has announced that the 4,913gt/2005 built Highspeed 5 (which suffered serious fire damage earlier in 2015) will return under the name of Highspeed 7 as from 10th June on the Heraklion-Santorini- Ios-Naxos-Mykonos route. Meanwhile the 4,662gt/1997 built Hellenic Wind (built as the Superseacat Four) will be renamed the Hellenic Highspeed for the Rafina-Tinos- Mykonos route which will be expanded from May 9th to also serve Paros-Ios and Santorini.

Highspeed Ferries’ plans to set up a Weymouth-Cherbourg route in 2016 are no closer to fruition, putting the future of Weymouth Harbour as a ferry port in serious doubt.

Moby Lines and Tirrenia have been permitted to merge their services by the Italian competition authorities.

Scandlines announced on 21st December that the trials of the new ferry Berlin (above) would be delayed until early 2016. The completion of the new ferry, which will be introduced onto the Rostock (Germany) to Gedser (Denmark) route, is in its final stages at the Danish shipyard of Fayard. However, the comprehensive test programme drags on. The latest delay is partly due to a damaged main switchboard, which occurred just as the Christmas holidays were approaching.

Scrap Merchants are to purchase the burned out 25,984gt/2003 built ferry Sorrento, which caught fire in April 2015. She is to be recycled in Turkey in spring 2016 according to reports, whilst the fate of the burned out 26,904gt/2009 built Norman Atlantic remains undecided after her fire in December 2014.

St. Peter Line is chartering out the 39,043gt/1981 built cruiseferry Princess Maria (above) during January-March 2016 and will only operate the 37,583gt/1986 built Princess Anastasia twice weekly on the St. Petersburg-Helsinki -Stockholm-St Petersburg and St. Petersburg-Helsinki- Tallinn-Stockholm-St. Petersburg schedules. Revenue for 2015 was below what was expected.

Townsend Thoresen veteran Free Enterprise VII, built in 1973 and last employed in the UK as the Pride of Rathlin (Larne-Cairnryan) was reported around the New Year period as having sunk in July 2015. The ship had been renamed KMP BSP III and sank in Bojonegara, Banten Province, Indonesia where she remains on her starboard side.