Commuter traffic and harbour cruising combine in high quality newbuilding

摘要

VT Halmatic is currently involved in a passenger ferry with an interesting background, built to a Camarc design on steelwork fabricated in Poland. Anew small ferry for a company operating a core business of short journeys of a few hundred metres from one side of a harbour to another might not sound particularly exciting, but the background to Portsmouth Harbour Ferry Company's latest vessel, currently in build at VT Halmatic, reveals far more than our prosaic summary above. Portsmouth Harbour Ferry Company is in fact one of the most profitable vessel operators in the world, and at the time of writing was involved in a controversial takeover bid from the South Atlantic-based Falkland Islands Holdings company, which was already in possession of just over 20% of PHFC shares. The board of PHFC, while fully involved in resisting this offer, was also continuing to work on its fleet renewal and expansion programme, a task which has itself been beset by various difficulties but is reaching a hopefully happy conclusion.