CROSS CHANNEL FERRIES

The top colour photo shows Meeching assisting a cargo ship. It's one of Fred Olsen Line's regular vessels but I can't tell you which one from this photo! She's come inside the breakwater bow-first and stopped using engines and her anchors. Meeching will now turn her around and tow her in stern-first, ready to berth at Fishers' terminal on the East Quay.

The next photo is our faithful Senlac swinging out from the berth as she sails for Dieppe.

Finally, the third photo is the little French cargo ship Capitaine le Goff. She was a disaster from day one, so slow that she could only make one round trip per day. She also rolled uncomfortably and you can see the big white tank that was installed on her to make her a better seaboat. It didn't work and she only lasted a few seasons.

All three are from the mid 1970's.

Hi Andy, was it the Capitaine le Goff that capsized, either in the Baltic or the Med, or was it the other truck ferry that used to visit regularly. I think her name was the Dundalk?

CLG did go to the Med Rob, but I can't find anything about her capsizing. Dundalk only ran here once to the best of my knowledge on the occasion when Senlac broke down and was replaced with Free Enterprise II. Dundalk carried her freight loads.

I'll have a dig around the web and report back!

Hi Andy, I seem to remember another similiar freight ferry, all white in colour that ran around the late 70's or early 80's, about the same time as the CLG. I'm wondering whether my mind is playing tricks and it was that one which flipped a year or two after it left Newhaven, NOT the CLG.

It will be one of those things that niggles me and wakes me in the middle of the night.!

I believe the ship that you refer to was called something like Marine Evangeline or similar. However I also heard some years ago that Capitaine Le Goff had sunk.....

Marine Evangeline ran here from 1986 to 1988 for Dieppe Ferries and again in 1995 for Stena, but she was always painted blue. When researching the ferries that have operated from Newhaven across the years, I could find no details on an all-white freight ferry in any of the records. Capitaine Le Goff was sold on a couple of times, ending up as the Al Zaher II. She did not sink but was scrapped in 2008.

I have had a good think about this subject and I have tried to track down a photographic slide I took of a freight only ferry that ran from Newhaven over a limited period, but I cannot find it. However I believe it had either a yellow or orange funnel(s). From the back of my mind I remember one called 'Vinzia' and another called 'CR Casablanca'. Or did I see these somewhere else. I don't think they were registered under the Sealink name and certainly weren't in their lkivery and were probably chartered......

CR Casablanca ran twice from Newhaven to Dieppe. Originally called Le Mans, and operating in 1983 for a company called Overseas Container Services, she was something of a failure - she had only six feet of clearance when she swung at Newhaven and pilots were wary of bringing her into port in anything above Force 6 winds. She therefore was on the route for just a few months. In 1990, she was back with new owners and her new name. Improvements to the port of Newhaven in the intervening years meant that she was now more suited to the route and, chartered by SNAT Dieppe Ferries, she was primarily used to carry semi-trailers for the SCAC group, before they deserted Newhaven for Portsmouth. Vinzia E came along three years later, chartered by Stena Sealink. Although she retained her grey hull, she did gain the blue hull and 'galloping maggot' logo, and was branded as Stena Sealink on her hull.

Capitaine Le Goff sailed in the Red Sea from 1981 to 2008 as Al Zaher II and was broken in 2008 in India. see : http://www.shipspotting.com/gallery/photo.php?lid=721228