1986
NorTH Adriatic
On 1986 the
services on longer Adriatic services were in a consistent decline rather than the
previous years. These years the most representative vessel serving Venice was the ferry which was bearing the Venice’s emblem on her
twin funnels, the “Espresso Egitto”.
As the name said, the ferry linked Venice with Egypt, arriving at Alexandria,
via Piraeus and Heraklion,
on Crete Island;
this long route, passing also via the Corinth Canal,
was effected once every eight days. On the same year,
another long service departed from Venice,
effected by an unusual company on Adriatic market with
a very interesting ship. I’m speaking about the “Orient Express”, launched 11
years before for Silja Line and bought by Sea
Containers for her English subsidiary Sealink British ferries. The ferry was
introduced on a weekly service from Venice to Piraeus, Istanbul, Kusadasi, Patmos and Katakolon, the last call before returning back to Venice,
offering both a ferry connection and a cruise, Between these “elite” services,
we also had two sister ro/ros sailing from Trieste to
Igoumenitsa and Patras, the
“Europa” and “Europa II”
for Hellenic
Cypriot Mediterranean Line (HCML).
ANCONA
That year, four
different companies were operating out of Ancona; between these, nowadays ony one is still performing the service, instead about the
other three companies, one stopped their services for years, another one was
absorbed by another ferry group changing her commercial brands and name,
another one is operating only a single ferry. According to alphabetical order
the first one is Karageorgis Line, an
hystorical company between Ancona and Patras,
which, after glorious years, in 1986 was linking these ports with only two
ferries, “Mediterranean Sea” and “Mediterranean
Sky”. They joined the Greek fleet in early ‘70’s; at these times
second-hand ferries were virtually inhexistent and
the shipowners hadn’t already started to buy Japanese
ships. They were, instead, two former refrigerated-cargo ships lauinched in 1953, later converted as ferries with side
loading doors and a not very impressive garage capacity. In 1986 they were
obviously the largest ferries serving Ancona and they also had the
higher passenger capacity, but they also were the slowest and less handy
vessels completing the route in about 36 hours at the average speed of 14 knots
and needing often the tugs for her berthing manoeuvres. Because of these
reasons, the four departures each way didn’t call at Corfu
and Igoumenitsa. The first challenger on that route
was Marlines,
a young company established only four years before. Marlines intended to serve Ancona
with three ships, the “Baroness M”, the “Princess M” and the new flagship
“Queen M”, but the latter one starter effective service only the following
year. The first one was engaged on a long weekly service departing from Ancona and calling at Igoumenitsa and Patras before
arriving at Izmir; the
second one, already operating for Marlines for two years, was on a two weekly
departures timetable from Ancona to Igoumenitsa
and Patras. Then we must examinate
Minoan Lines,
since 1981 present in Ancona and sailing with the same
ferry of that year, the “El Greco”. One of the first Japanese ro-pax to came to Greece in 1979, was arrived only after three
ferries that time, the two Central sisters and the green arrow, better known as
the “Candia”, “Kriti”
and “Rethimnon” of Anek
Lines. For the sixth year the ferry, which had lost the best part of her upper
garage for cabins and public spaces, offered two weekly sailings from Ancona to Corfu,
Igoumenitsa and Patras on
the same days of “Princess M”. The last company which was
sailing from Ancona to
Greece
was Strintzis Lines with its blue-hulled
ferries, sailing on summer with two ferries and four weekly departures each
port, being the most competitive challenger of Karageorgis.
Starring, the “Ionian
Star” and the “Ionian Glory”, two ferries operated
respectively for ten and five years; The first was originally owned by Lion
Ferry, a subsidiary of Stena Line, and went under the
Greek flag at her 12th year of life after a spell in Canada; the “Ionian Glory”
was instead the first French-built car ferry, the “Compiegne”
of Sealink SNCF, which was rebuilt in Greece from a
“day ferry” for Cross-Channel services, to an “overnight” ship with 689 berths.
A noticeable fact of Strintzis timetable was that the
noon departures, which were required to mantain the
four weekly departures on the 34/36 hours crossings, were effected
from Patras and not from Ancona, as the
other companies did.
BARI
At the half of 80’s
the port of Bari started to gain traffic, stealing
traffic from Brindisi, the hystorical
point of departure to Greece, mainly because of its better road connections,
while neither nowadays the highway reaches Brindisi,
some 100 km
far from the Apulian capital. Bari was a sort of
“monopoly” of Ventouris Ferries, the first company who
seriously believed the potential of this harbour. They were operating two
ferries which had two perfectly-chosen names: “Bari Express”
and “Patra Express”. The two ferries had a
similar history: both entered in service in 1968, launched within a month each
other, were owned by two companies part of Sealink
consortium, the first one for Belgian R.M.T., connecting Dover to Oostende, the second one for British Railways, sailing from
Harwich to Hoek Van Holland on alternate days with
the Dutch ferry “Koningin Juliana”, which became
sadly more famous later with the name of “Moby Prince”. These ferries were
rather unusual for Ventouris Ferries, the Ventouris Ferries as we know nowadays, without a significative cargo capacity (especially the “Bari Express”)
and also equipped with swimming pool. The ferries had an evening departure and
an arrival in both ports at late afternoon, after calls in Corfu
and Igoumenitsa.
BRINDISI - Otranto
As we’ve seen, Brindisi is the hystorical Italian port of ferry connections to Greece,
and even if nowadays its traffic figures are not so high, 20 years ago the
situation was radically different. That time, the companies which were
dominating the Brindisi
scene were the Italian Adriatica and the Greek
Hellenic Mediterranean Lines (HML), which were linking Brindisi and Patras
via Corfu and Igoumenitsa since 1960 with the hystorical pair “Appia” and “Egnatia”, which were very popular between the young
backpackers which intended to travel to Greece
and the Eurail holders. The ferries operated by the
Italian State-owned company were two: the famous “Appia”,
which was in Adriatica fleet since 1961, and the
“Espresso Grecia”. The ferry, a sort of prototype of
the modern ro-pax as we know them today, was built in
1973 by the “Luigi Orlando” yards of Leghorn as the
“Espresso Livorno” and from 1980 was engaged on daily
crossings from Brindisi to Corfu and Igoumenitsa, leaving Italy on evening and Greece in the
morning on summer period, inverting the departures from the half of August till
the half of September. The once-time mate on the joint
service. HML, had a stronger service from Brindisi:
apart of the first newly-built ferry for a Greek operator, the “Egnatia”, we had a Greek-built ferry, the “Castalia”,
flagship of the fleet, built at Kynossoura yards in
1974, capable of an impressive figure of 1600 passengers, sailing between Brindisi and Patras on a daily
basis with the “Egnatia”; the company operated also a
third ferry, the “Lydia II”, second ferry owned by the company to carry that
name, which was operating between Brindisi, Corfu and
Igoumenitsa against the “Espresso Grecia”.
The ferry was originally part of RMT fleet, and it’s far easy to link that
ferry to the Belgian company, due to the sleek profile which is a typical
feature of Boelwerf Vlandereen
built ferries; once time she was sailing between Oostend
and Dover, with
a good speed also typical of Belgian-built ferries. The third company which
operated ferries out of Brindisi was the Greek Fragline, owned by Fragoudakis
family,. The company started their services between
‘60’s and ‘70’s and was mainly employed on Greek domestic services untild the deployment of the flagship “Georgios”
on Brindisi – Corfu – Igoumenitsa
– Patras line and the introduction of a second ship
in 1981, the “Eolos”. This ferry was originally built
for Finnlines in 1962, and subsequently sold to Polferries, and that year she lost her first mate, the “Georgios”, for her second mate in Fragline
fleet, the “Ouranos”. The ferry was bought from Comanav and deployed on Brindisi – Corfu
– Igoumenitsa – Patras
line. It’s very interesting to notice that the introduction of the “Ouranos” established two different liveries in the fleet,
as long as “Ouranos”’s hull wasn’t repainted in the
classic Fragline blue, but maintained her white hull.
This difference was present until 1995, when the Ouranos
was sold and the Fragline ferries remained white.
Also Mediterranean Line intended to deploy a ferry from Brindisi to Patras, the “Valentino” which was instead chartered to
HCML, then we can notice the hystorical
presence of the “Roana” at Otranto.
Photos in this page
are courtesy of Matteo Fasce,
Pieter Inpijn, Fleet File Rotterdam, Brian Fisher,
Michele Lulurgas plus some official shots.
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