Barfleur, the cross channel ferry from Poole to Cherbourg is not in mid January a very busy ship. The last few days have been cold, with icy rain and the threat of snow, a rarity in the usually mild Dorset climes. Today, however, there is the promise of sunshine, just appearing over the horizon as we get ready to depart. A few minutes early, we head off from the berth into Poole Harbour, for a moment at least heading straight towards the rising sun.
The route from the port of Poole to the English Channel is not a particularly direct one, and takes longer to traverse than it does for us to eat our cooked breakfasts in Barfleur’s self service restaurant. The harbour channel makes tight turns to get round the twin obstacles of Brownsea Island and Sandbanks. The water is shallow here, and accuracy important. As we round the final turn the harbour mouth becomes visible, the chain ferry linking each bank waiting for us on the Studland side with only a few cars wanting to cross this early on a Saturday.
As we steam away from Poole out into the Channel I go up onto the winch deck. The sun is now as up as it gets in January and although I am in a reasonably sheltered position the wind is still bitingly cold.
We pass MN Pelican, heading into Poole to take our place on the linkspan to discharge her unaccompanied cargo. On arrival, she will load up with many more unaccompanied trailers and set off for Santander in northern Spain, ensuring productive mileage for those goods on board on a Sunday when most lorry movements are prohibited in France.
A slight swell set in as we pressed on. Seats in the restaurant gave way to recliner seats in the lounge, and wakefulness gave way to forty winks as the soporific effect of the rocking motion continued.
Eyes sprang open as we entered Cherbourg’s grand rade, and the public address system ping-ponged to let us know we were arriving. Heading out onto the deck, we were able to get an excellent view of the very thing we had come to see, the fast ferry Condor Rapide fully out of the water and on dry land for her annual refit.
This magic is achieved thanks to Cherbourg’s Syncrolift, in operation since 2001 and capable of lifting a 90m craft weighing up to 4500 tonnes. It is always impressive to see ships out of the water, that which is normally hidden exposed for all to see. It is doubly so to see it in the flesh and at close quarters.
Once on dry land we drove round to the passenger terminal where an outside viewing deck allowed us to get a closer look.
Rapide, the youngest example of Incat’s 86m class of wavepiercing catamarans, was built in 1997 with hull number 045 and has been in service with Condor Ferries, almost exclusively on their southern Channel Islands — St Malo route since 2010. Between 2010 to 2015 Condor operated three of these distinctive craft, having owned her older sisters Condor Express (042) and Condor Vitesse (044) from new (or almost in the case of Vitesse). 042 and 044 were sold to Greek operator Seajets in 2015 and Rapide is now Condor’s sole remaining catamaran.
Despite the welcome sunshine the temperature still does not lend itself to much lingering outside, and we need to set about finding the late lunch we have promised ourselves.
On our return to Barfleur following the usual round of day trip supermarket shopping we observe with interest that the wind has picked up somewhat and is blowing us right into the berth. An on-the-minute departure is complicated somewhat by the need to apply lots and lots of bow thruster to keep us off the piling. As we turn in the inky blackness of the harbour the wind becomes distinctly uninviting and we repair downstairs to the bar for beer, tall tales and an amuse bouche of crisps and peanuts.
The swell picks up a little later and we make the decision to feed in an almost empty self-service restaurant. I have eaten an awful lot of ferry food over the years and most of it is completely inoffensive but impossible to be prosaic about. A curiosity does present itself in the dessert selection however and I buy it, guessing it to be some sort of upside-down cheesecake. Wrong: it is lemon tart, also upside-down. As we hit the recliners for the last couple of hours I ponder whether or not this was intentional, and all of a sudden we are back in Poole, back in the car, and back on the road home.
Footnotes
- More photos on my Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/andrewjhaz/albums/72157677193610762
- We travelled from Poole to Cherbourg with Brittany Ferries on a day return. These depart Poole at 0830 and generally give you four hours ashore. The return sailing departs Cherbourg at 1830 and will return you to Poole at 2145. On some days return sailings will depart at 2215 to provide a night crossing to Poole, arriving at 0700 the next day. Check the timetable for further details.
- Much better photos of an Incat 86m on the syncrolift can be found on the Cherbourg Escale blog, in this case Condor Vitesse. The author, Clément Lepetit seems to have access inside the port secure area and regularly posts photos of interesting vessels on the lift: http://cherbourgescale.over-blog.com/article-le-condor-vitesse-sur-l-elevateur-68278740.html
- Want to see how a syncrolift works? The manufacturer has an entire YouTube channel devoted to videos about Syncrolifts, but this example, featuring some particularly upbeat corporate EDM has a fairly good stab at it:
