Anybody old enough to have served on British Rail Ferries (Dover)

[Malcolm Conyers]

Looking for old shipmates and BOT aquaintances

Added for you! Malcolm

I'm looking for people old enough to have served on British Rail Ferries, I joined ss Dover in 1965 as 2nd Mate. ex Ellerman Lines

[Doc Vernon]

Hi Malcolm
Hope you may soon get some replies on this,may take a wee while but I am sure there may be someone out there !
Cheers

[Red Lead Ted]

Looking for old shipmates and BOT aquaintances

Hi , Malcolm, I was 12 months sailing out of Holyhead B.R., Cambria, Hibernia, Duke Of Rothersay, and this one happy days Mal, Only thing was we were that fed up with travelling from L,Pool to Holyhead. We rented a caravan from a farmer in a field in Holyhead, If walls had ears Terry.


The Vortigern

An interesting ship which served briefly on the Holyhead – Dun Laoghaire route was the Vortigern. She was built in 1969 as a combined train/vehicle ferry for Dover and Folkestone, and marked a revolution for the local fleet in that she was the first Dover BR vessel to be driven by a diesel engine and to be built with a drive-through car deck, complete with bow visor. For some time she sailed as a train ferry to Dunkerque in winter and as a car ferry to Oostende in summer. She later became almost exclusively a car ferry, but her strengthened hull (for railway carriages) served her well in March 1982 when she ran aground on the breakwater next to the port entrance at Oostende. Her passengers had to be disembarked using lifeboats and, after waiting 4 days for a very high tide, she was eventually freed. The stresses of lying with bows in the air would have caused most ships to break their backs, but the Vortigern’s strengthened hull for the train ferry service allowed her to survive!

The Vortigern ended her Sealink career on the Holyhead – Dun Laoghaire route in March 1988, before being sold to Lindos Lines in Greece and renamed the Milos Express

[johnathan charles]

I sailed on the dover as mess boy 1971 out of Holyhead for 2 months in school holidays before I went on deep sea trawlers .

[Keith Moody]

anyone old enough to have worked on BR ferries???????
started on them in 1959 on the Maid of Orleans, there to the Dinard, then the Invicter, over to the folkestone run on the Canterbery, back to the Maid of Orleans. left in 1961 to go coastal.
keith moody
R635978

[Mark jones]

Hi Malcolm,
I am brand new to this forum as I was trying to find out any details of what became of the Vortigern as my grandad Jim Priestly used to serve on her during the 1970's when it was run by BR he was an engineer and took myself and my younger brother on it for a crossing and showed us all around it. We even when's up on the bridge and met the captain who let us steer the ship,a memory that is embedded for ever I was aged about 10 years old ( keep it within the lubbers line ) is what I remember the captain saying I miss my grandad he passed away in 1986.

Regards

Mark Jones

[Keith at Tregenna]

Vortigern the Ferry ?

Vortigern the Ferry

[Richard Quartermaine]

At Easter 1950 I had just left the Port Saint John in Newcastle on Tyne and Prior to joining the Port Dunedin for a return trip to New Zealand I thought I'd have the Easter Weekend in Paris. I took the Golden Arrow steam train to Dover, the ferry (I cannot recall it's name) to Calais and then the Fleche d'Or steam train to Paris Gare du Nord. I remember it well. The cheapest room in a B&B in Montmarte, the flicks with Dorothy Lamour without a bra in something about la Mer Sud, walking all over Paris and checking out the museums. Gorking at the the pictures advertising the shows going on inside the Moulin Rouge. The best Easter I ever had. Then back the same way to London. Merchant Navy! Wow! what a life.
Richard

[Lewis McColl]

Hi , Malcolm, I was 12 months sailing out of Holyhead B.R., Cambria, Hibernia, Duke Of Rothersay, and this one happy days Mal, Only thing was we were that fed up with travelling from L,Pool to Holyhead. We rented a caravan from a farmer in a field in Holyhead, If walls had ears Terry.




The Vortigern ended her Sealink career on the Holyhead – Dun Laoghaire route in March 1988, before being sold to Lindos Lines in Greece and renamed the Milos Express

Surely that is wrong , as late as 1969 she was the first Dover BR vessel to be driven by Diesel engines!!!!!!

[Red Lead Ted]

Surely that is wrong , as late as 1969 she was the first Dover BR vessel to be driven by Diesel engines!!!!!!

Take a look Lew, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Vortigern