Missile ferry coming our way

pugwash

pugwash

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A 1,200-passenger super-ferry 510 feet long is coming into service in 2006. It will run between Portsmouth and Caen at 75mph, according to The Week. It's a "Bateau a Grande Vitesse" (BGV) designed by a Frenchman. See http://www.bgvinnovation.fr/

Cripes.

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You should definately always stand on, even to a vessel like that. No way I'm getting out of the way- up to them to avoid me- always. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

<hr width=100% size=1>Life's too short- do it now./forums/images/icons/wink.gif
 
Gawd - I hope it is a bit more reliable than the Pont Aven, the latest ferry to operate out of Plymouth. French designed, built, and operated it is currently sailing at a limited speed after several breakdowns since it first came into service a couple of months ago.

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'I saw did not mention the wash - which presumably is a function of speed. Any guesses? '
Awesome.... ready to 'Rock and Roll'

<hr width=100% size=1>If work was so good, the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.
 
Maybe not as awesome as you think. The lines are reminiscent of the (?) Elan Voyager and its successor (whose name I forget) which did a round the world trip. The lines of the boat meant that wash was really quite limited, in spite of the speeds it could achieve. This may be a relative concept, given its size, but I'd be prepared to bet that, for example, it will kick out less wash than a conventional passenger ferry or big Seacat.

<hr width=100% size=1>Je suis Marxiste - tendance Groucho
 
That's very true. In Brest last month I was passed at high speed by a miniature version of one of these things and it made hardly any wash at all.

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The problem with the wash of the current range of HSF's is that they seem to have a hefty drag effect, displacing a large body of water which when it reaches shallows and beaches etc can pile up into a dangerously high surge. Anyone who has been on the beach at Studland when the HSF ferry came out and accelerates off the fairway buoy will be familiar with the 3 foot surge up the beach some 10 minutes later - causing mayhem with holidaymakers and kids on that calm sheltered beach. I beleive they have changed the mode of operation so that it does not accelarate until its further out now?

Newhaven clearly has (had?) the same problem with the beach inside the outer mole, which had large warning notices of the surge following HSF movements.

Lets hope this latest design has resolved this issue.

But 75mph in a channel gale? "Ladies and Gentlemen please fasten your seatbelts"

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