RoPax10

38 / INTERVIEW
JPE
DFDS is Ready for Brexit
In the past two years DFDS has expanded its route network by the acquisition of the Turkish shipping
company UN RoRo. The port of Sète in France was also established as a second gateway to Turkey. Four of
the six new mega RoRo vessels which were constructed at Jinling Shipyard in China have been delivered.
At the time of writing, three were in service. Two of them operate between Trieste (Italy) and Istanbul area
(Turkey) and one was deployed to the Gothenburg (Sweden) - Ghent (Belgium) route. All new RoRo`s show
a very good performance and have a good quality. RoPax talked with Peder Gellert Pedersen, Executive Vice
President and Head of the Ferry Division, about the operational results and next steps of DFDS.
RoPax: How satisfied are you with the performance
of the new Mega RoRo ships that
travel between Trieste and Turkey and now
also on the North Sea between Belgium
and Sweden?
Peder Gellert Pedersen: It took us some
time to utilise the new vessels because we
placed the first two on the route between
Italy and Turkey but the shore ramps were
not ready. We could only use two of the
three stern loading ramps. It took us a little
bit more time to benefit from the size of
the newbuilds. After the linkspans were
completed at the both ports in Italy and
Turkey all stern ramps and freight decks
have been extremely well used. We can
now discharge and load each vessel in 8-10
hours at both ports, which is very good,
and this meets our expectations. The vessels
are very efficient in terms of handling
and we have had the same experience on
the Gothenburg – Ghent service. There we
also use the mezzanine decks for cars, and
Peder Gellert Pedersen
we also handle the vessels in 8 hours at the
North European ports. That is a good result.
We had some teething issues only on the
propulsion side. The OD boxes, which are
controlling the pitch propellers, have been
troublesome on all four new vessels delivered
to date. But of course, this problem
has now been solved. We got a turn key
DFDS
solution from MAN for the whole propulsion
system incl. main engines. MAN
made a very good job and we had technicians
on board to solve the problem. That
is basically the only major technical issue
that we had. The shipyard has been very
good with all four vessels being on time,
the latest being the “Humbria Seaways.”
Number 5 should have been on sea trials at
the time of the interview but of course the
yard was closed, and we will have to wait
and see how this situation progresses. Our
Danish yard site team is actually in Denmark
or abroad, but not in China due to
the restriction of travelling due to the corona
virus.
RoPax: How is the development of your
activities in the Med? Sète as your new
French port was a good decision?
Peder Gellert Pedersen: We have had
many challenges in the year 2019 on the
Med services. Of course, we had the nega-
RoPax 10 / 03.2020