is a Dutch registered passenger and cargo

roll-on/roll-off ship Roll-on/roll-off (RORO or ro-ro) ships are cargo ships designed to carry wheeled cargo, such as cars, motorcycles, trucks, semi-trailer trucks, buses, Trailer (vehicle), trailers, and railroad cars, that are driven on and off the ship on their o ...

cruiseferry A cruiseferry is a ship that combines the features of a cruise ship and a Ro-Pax ferry. Many passengers travel with the ships for the cruise experience, staying only a few hours at the destination port or not leaving the ship at all, while oth ...

, in service with P&O North Sea Ferries on the

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * Chassis, of an armored fighting vehicle * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a ship * Submarine hull Mathematics * Affine hull, in affi ...

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Rotte (river), Rotte'') is the second largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city and List of municipalities of the Netherlands, municipality in the Netherlands. It is in the Prov ...

route. The cruiseferry was also featured in the video game

Ship Simulator Extremes ''Ship Simulator'' is a ship simulator, a type of vehicle simulation computer game which simulates maneuvering various ships in different environments, although without the effects of wind and current. It was developed by Dutch company VSTEP and ...

Description

''Pride of Rotterdam'' is long with a beam of and a draught of . She is powered by four

Wärtsilä Wärtsilä Oyj Abp (), trading internationally as Wärtsilä Corporation, is a Finnish company which manufactures and services power sources and other equipment in the marine and energy markets. The core products of Wärtsilä include technol ...

9L46C

diesel engine The diesel engine, named after Rudolf Diesel, is an internal combustion engine in which ignition of the fuel is caused by the elevated temperature of the air in the cylinder due to mechanical compression; thus, the diesel engine is a so-cal ...

s which have a total power output of . These can propel her at . ''Pride of Rotterdam'' can carry 1,370 passengers. She has of lane capacity, and can carry 250 cars and 400 trailers. Cars are driven in through an entrance in the ship's side and stored separately from trailers, which are loaded from the rear. Pride of Rotterdam can store 400 m3 of drinking water.

History

P and O Ferries seen from Goxhill Haven - geograph

The ship's keel was laid on 1 March 1999. The ship was built as yard number 6065. She was originally to have been named , but this was changed to ''Pride of Rotterdam'' before her launch on 29 September 2000. ''Pride of Rotterdam'' was officially handed over to P&O North Sea Ferries on 12 April 2001 in

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto Regions of Italy, region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. She was christened on 27 April 2001 by

Queen Beatrix Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard, ; born 31 January 1938) is a member of the Dutch royal house who reigned as Queen of the Netherlands from 1980 until her abdication in 2013. Beatrix is the eldest daughter of Queen Juliana and her husban ...

and entered service on 30 April 2001 on the

route. ''Pride of Rotterdam'' is owned by Hampton Shipping BV, managed by P&O North Sea Ferries and classed by

Lloyd's Register Lloyd's Register Group Limited (LR) is a technical and professional services organisation and a maritime classification society, wholly owned by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation, a UK charity dedicated to research and education in science and ...

. The ship has a capacity of and . She is allocated the

IMO Number The IMO number of the International Maritime Organization is a generic term covering two distinct meanings. The IMO ship identification number, is a type of hull number used as a unique ship identifier, and the IMO company and registered owne ...

9208617,

MMSI Number A Maritime Mobile Service Identity (MMSI) is effectively a maritime object's international ''maritime telephone number'', a temporarily assigned UID, issued by that object's current flag state, (unlike an IMO, which is a global forever UID). An ...

244980000 and uses the callsign PBAJ. Her port of registry is Rotterdam. Both ''Pride of Rotterdam'' and ''Pride of Hull'' are too wide to pass through the lock at Hull.

Associated British Ports Associated British Ports owns and operates 21 ports in the United Kingdom, managing around 25 per cent of the UK's sea-borne trade. The company's activities cover transport, haulage and terminal operations, ship's agency, dredging and marine cons ...

built a new terminal at Hull to accommodate the passengers using these two ferries. The Rotterdam Terminal was built at a cost of £14,300,000. On 21 November 2005, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the introduction of the Hull - Rotterdam route, ''Pride of Rotterdam'' sailed from Rotterdam to Hull with the Dutch band

BZN BZN (''Band Zonder Naam''; Dutch for "Band Without Name") was a Dutch pop group that had a string of hits from 1966 to 2007 on. BZN recorded mostly in English and French, but also had success with material in Dutch and German. History BZN star ...

performing on board. The return sailing on 22 November also saw BZN performing. On 3 December 2008, a crew member was lost overboard in the

North Sea The North Sea lies between Great Britain, Norway, Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. An epeiric sea on the European continental shelf, it connects to the Atlantic Ocean through the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian ...

off the east coast of 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 ...

. A search was initiated involving eight lifeboats and

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attribu ...

s from

RAF Leconfield Royal Air Force Leconfield or more simply RAF Leconfield is a former Royal Air Force station located in Leconfield (near Beverley), East Riding of Yorkshire, England. The site is now used by the MoD Defence School of Transport Leconfield or ...

and Wattisham. The search was called off but the missing crew member was not found.

Layout

''Pride of Rotterdam'' has 12 decks.

In popular culture

The ship is featured in the VSTEP game ''Ship Simulator 2008'' and ''Ship Simulator Extremes'' enabling gamers to sail the ship in a number of different environments around the world including the

Solent The Solent ( ) is a strait between the Isle of Wight and Great Britain. It is about long and varies in width between , although the Hurst Spit which projects into the Solent narrows the sea crossing between Hurst Castle and Colwell Bay t ...

and the

Port of Rotterdam The Port of Rotterdam is the largest seaport in Europe, and the world's largest seaport outside of East Asia, located in and near the city of Rotterdam, in the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. From 1962 until 2004, it was the worl ...

. It also appears in the popular book ''Eddie Burns' Lethal List 2013''.

Sister Ships

''Pride of Rotterdam'' has one sister ship: *

References

External links

Current position of ''Pride of Rotterdam''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pride of Rotterdam Ferries of the United Kingdom Cruiseferries 2000 ships Ships built by Fincantieri Ships built in Venice Merchant ships of the Netherlands Merchant ships of the Bahamas Ships of P&O Ferries