Oleander

Last week, I posted photos of Pride of Kent (ex-Spirit of Free Enterprise) as I found out she'd gone to breakers in the summer. Of the three Spirit-class sister ships - my all-time favourite ferries -  built in 1979/80 for the Townsend-Thoresen Dover to Calais route only one now survives, the former Pride of Free Enterprise, now called Oleander and sailing across the Mediterranean between Spain and Morocco, for Trans-Europa Ferries. Oleander is also still much as built, with a few small alterations, unlike the unfortunate Pride of Kent which was lengthened and had odd bits stuck on.
Before being sent to the Med, Oleander was on TEF's Ramsgate-Ostende route for a few years; I also saw her in Dover and Calais a number of times, as Pride of Bruges and P&OSL Picardy. I hope Oleander is around for a good many years yet, better still back in northern European waters.

I can't find any pics I might have of her as P&OSL Picardy, and I'm sure I have some somewhere and if I find them I'll add them. The pictures below are all scanned prints.

Here she is as Pride of Bruges, a name she was given when P&O wanted to rid themselves of the 'Free Enterprise' style of naming following the disaster at Zeebrugge, when her sister ship Herald of Free Enterprise capsized (the Herald was subsequently refloated and, offered for sale but deemed uneconomical to repair, ended her too-short life in a scrapyard in Taiwan in 1988).

And here she is, as Oleander, at Ostende in August 2003