MV ''Normandie'' is a

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water taxi ...

operated by

Brittany Ferries Brittany Ferries is the trading name of the French shipping company, BAI Bretagne Angleterre Irlande S.A. founded in 1973 by Alexis Gourvennec, that operates a fleet of ferries and cruiseferries between France and the United Kingdom, Ireland, ...

. She was built at Kværner Masa-Yards Turku New Shipyard in

Finland Finland ( fi, Suomi ; sv, Finland ), officially the Republic of Finland (; ), is a Nordic country in Northern Europe. It shares land borders with Sweden to the northwest, Norway to the north, and Russia to the east, with the Gulf of B ...

and has been sailing for Brittany Ferries since 1992.

SECA 2015 refit

On the 1st January 2015, the EU (including the North Sea, English Channel, Eastern side of the Western Channel and Baltic Sea) will have sulphur in marine fuel cut from the allowance in 2014 of 1% to 0.1% of sulphur allowed. Later that month, Brittany Ferries then announced three intentions; To fit scrubbers to a number of older vessels, to convert newer vessels to

LNG Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas (predominantly methane, CH4, with some mixture of ethane, C2H6) that has been cooled down to liquid form for ease and safety of non-pressurized storage or transport. It takes up about 1/600th the volu ...

, and to construct a new LNG powered ferry. Later, Brittany Ferries withdrew and cancelled the order for a new LNG-powered ferry and for the LNG conversions, and instead announced that all vessels were to have scrubbers systems fitted. Accordingly, Normandie was fitted with a scrubber in October 2015. In the same dry dock visit, improvements were made to her public areas.

Routes served

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,Ouistreham Ouistreham () is a commune in the Calvados department in Normandy region in northwestern France. Ouistreham is a small port with fishing boats, leisure craft and a ferry harbour. It serves as the port of the city of Caen. The town borders the mo ...

) 1992–present ''Normandie'' rarely strays from the route for which she was built, however she has operated between

and

Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Feb ...

on a number of sailings, mostly for Christmas and New Year layovers but also in 1994 to transport the

Tour de France The Tour de France () is an annual men's multiple-stage bicycle race primarily held in France, while also occasionally passing through nearby countries. Like the other Grand Tours (the Giro d'Italia and the Vuelta a España), it consists ...

back to its home country after a leg in the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

. In late 2016, Brittany Ferries signed a letter of intent with Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft for a new cruise ferry between Portsmouth-Caen to be delivered in 2019. The new vessel, ''Honfleur'', would result in a fleet movement with ''Normandie'' assigned to the Portsmouth-Le Havre service from late 2019. In June 2020 Brittany Ferries announced the cancellation of the ''Honfleur'' contract with the Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft shipyard in Germany meaning ''Normandie'' will remain in the Portsmouth-Caen route.

External links

Official Brittany Ferries Website

about MV Normandie Official Brittany Ferries Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Normandie Ferries of the United Kingdom Ferries of France Cruiseferries Ships built in Turku 1991 ships