The Chinese CMI Jinling Weihai Shipyard has handed over the gas-run ferry, planned to start serving Spain-UK trade in early 2022.

The ferry is 214.5 m-long and offers room for 1,000 passengers and 2,723 lane metres of cargo capacity.

She will sail for Brittany Ferries under a long-time charter from Stena RoRo. Salamanca will be joined by her sister ship Santoña in 2023. Later, in 2024-2025, the French shipping company will take hold of two other gas-electric ferries for deployment between France and the UK (replacing the 1989- and 1992-built Bretagne and Normandie).

All four are of the E-Flexer series developed by the Swedish Stena. To date, six E-Flexers have been delivered, with another six already in the pipeline.

While Salamanca has undergone sea trials in the Yellow Sea, its crew has been practising in Brittany Ferries' Atalante training centre in St. Malo. The (compact and transportable) simulator is a digital mock-up of the ferry's liquefied natural gas (LNG) bunkering, storage, and preparation systems. "The simulator also allows staff to train in maintenance, and to practise specific procedures such as the complete shut-down of the LNG system," Brittany Ferries underlines in a press release.

Meanwhile, the ports of Bilbao and Santander are setting up LNG bunkering facilities to be used by Salamanca and Santoña.

Photo: Brittany Ferries