SpeedFerries
Encyclopedia
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Ferry
A ferry is a form of transportation, usually a boat, but sometimes a ship, used to carry primarily passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo as well, across a body of water. Most ferries operate on regular, frequent, return services...
operator which started in May 2004 and continued in business until November 2008. It operated one route between Dover
Dover
Dover is a town and major ferry port in the home county of Kent, in South East England. It faces France across the narrowest part of the English Channel, and lies south-east of Canterbury; east of Kent's administrative capital Maidstone; and north-east along the coastline from Dungeness and Hastings...
in England and Boulogne
Boulogne-sur-Mer
-Road:* Metropolitan bus services are operated by the TCRB* Coach services to Calais and Dunkerque* A16 motorway-Rail:* The main railway station is Gare de Boulogne-Ville and located in the south of the city....
in France. It had only one high-speed ferry, called SpeedOne.
Its founder and CEO was Curt Stavis, originally from Denmark.
History
SpeedFerries was the first low cost fast ferry operator in the English ChannelEnglish Channel
The English Channel , often referred to simply as the Channel, is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that separates southern England from northern France, and joins the North Sea to the Atlantic. It is about long and varies in width from at its widest to in the Strait of Dover...
, and faced considerable opposition from the existing ferry operators, whom SpeedFerries accused of acting unfairly and using illegal practices. These allegations included blocking berths to prevent ferries docking, spying, and hoax bomb scares. In response, SpeedFerries liveried its ship with 'Fight the Pirates' on the side.
In January 2005, the company was featured in the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's Trouble at the Top
Trouble at the Top
Trouble at the Top was a business-based BBC television fly on the wall documentary broadcast on BBC2.A spin off four-part series, Trouble at the Big Top, followed developments at the Millennium Dome in a similar style....
programme: the edition's name was "Fight the Pirates".
Reports in the maritime press indicated that SpeedFerries had secured a second vessel for use in 2007 which was likely to be the Mastercat, a 91 m (298.6 ft) Incat
INCAT
INCAT is a part of Tata Technologies Limited, a company in the Tata Group and operates in the field of Automotive Industry providing Engineering and Design solutions. The company took over a much larger player in the field namely INCAT, a Europe based company, in 2005...
catamaran
Catamaran
A catamaran is a type of multihulled boat or ship consisting of two hulls, or vakas, joined by some structure, the most basic being a frame, formed of akas...
which was to be replaced with a larger vessel by its owners, Master Ferries. However, Master Ferries were unable to secure the larger vessel so Mastercat was no longer available to SpeedFerries. Sailings to be operated by the second vessel were advertised on the SpeedFerries website. In May 2008, SpeedFerries bought SpeedOne from Incat.
In February 2007, SpeedFerries signed a lease on the former Dover Hoverport, though not the terminal building, at Dover's Western Docks, and subsequently moved operations there in March 2007. Once the move was achieved, SpeedFerries was able to provide exclusive facilities in both of its ports as it no longer shared them with other operators.