The P&O Ferries Dover – Calais ferry PRIDE OF BURGUNDY has been sold to a Turkish breakers yard. The 1993-built ship was sold at auction for a price of $320 per tonne according to broker reports, netting P&O Ferries around $3.7 million.
PRIDE OF BURGUNDY last saw service in December 2021 and has been laid up at Dunkerque East since. P&O Ferries has been seeking a buyer for the vessel for some time, with the ship originally “permanently withdrawn” during 2020.
The first of P&O Ferries’ two new Calais – Dover ferries, P&O PIONEER, is currently en route to Dover, so it is unsurprising that the company has chosen now to move PRIDE OF BURGUNDY on.
Given her age and Dover Strait centric design, it always seemed unlikely that PRIDE OF BURGUNDY would be sold for further service.
P&O Ferries is already taking bookings for P&O PIONEER sailings from 1 May.
The freighter completed as a passenger ferry
PRIDE OF BURGUNDY was originally conceived as the final of four German-built “Super-European class” freight ferries for the now closed Dover – Zeebrugge service, but before construction was completed she was converted to a passenger ferry for the Dover – Calais route.
The decision to make PRIDE OF BURGUNDY a passenger vessel was made late in the build process, just a few days before her launch. As a consequence, she was fitted with 96 passenger cabins giving her an odd configuration for the 90 minute Dover – Calais crossing.
Two other members of the Super-European class would also be rebuilt as Ro-Pax ferries for the Calais route a decade later after the Zeebrugge route closed. EUROPEAN PATHWAY became the PRIDE OF CANTERBURY and EUROPEAN HIGHWAY was renamed PRIDE OF KENT, though both received a more extensive rebuild than PRIDE OF BURGUNDY.
The lead vessel of the Super-European class, EUROPEAN SEAWAY, was sold to Sea Lines at the end of 2021. Now renamed SEA ANATOLIA, she has not yet entered service for the company despite conversion work in Türkiye to make her suitable for service away from the Dover Strait.
With the second of P&O’s new Dover ferries, P&O LIBERTÉ, expected in service before the end of this year, both the PRIDE OF CANTERBURY and PRIDE OF KENT are also expected to leave the fleet in the coming months.
