MS ''GNV Antares'', originally the MS ''Norsun'' and then MS ''Pride of Bruges'', is a ship operated by

Grandi Navi Veloci Grandi Navi Veloci (GNV) is an Italian shipping company, based in Genoa, that operates ferry, ferries between mainland Italy, Sicily, Sardinia, France, Spain, Albania, Morocco and Tunisia. It was established by Aldo Grimaldi in 1992. History ...

History

The ship was built by Nippon Kokan K.K. Tsurumi Yard in

Yokohama is the List of cities in Japan, second-largest city in Japan by population as well as by area, and the country's most populous Municipalities of Japan, municipality. It is the capital and most populous city in Kanagawa Prefecture, with a popu ...

, Japan. The keel was laid in 1985 and was launched in 1986. Upon completion, the ship entered service in 1987 for

North Sea Ferries North Sea Ferries was a ferry company which was jointly owned by P&O and Nedlloyd. It operated from 1965 until 1996, when it was merged into P&O Ferries, P&O Operations (P&O North Sea Ferries), it had routes from Kingston upon Hull, Hull to Rott ...

, then a joint-venture between Dutch

Nedlloyd Nedlloyd was a Dutch shipping company, formed in 1970 as the result of a merger of several shipping lines: *Stoomvaart Maatschappij Nederland (SMN) *Koninklijke Rotterdamsche Lloyd (KRL) *Koninklijke Java-China-Paketvaart-Lijnen (KJCPL) *Vereen ...

and British P&O. The first years it sailed on the

Rotterdam Rotterdam ( , ; ; ) is the second-largest List of cities in the Netherlands by province, city in the Netherlands after the national capital of Amsterdam. It is in the Provinces of the Netherlands, province of South Holland, part of the North S ...

Hull Hull may refer to: Structures * The hull of an armored fighting vehicle, housing the chassis * Fuselage, of an aircraft * Hull (botany), the outer covering of seeds * Hull (watercraft), the body or frame of a sea-going craft * Submarine hull Ma ...

route with sister ship '' Norsea'', replacing ''Norstar'' and '' Norland''. The ''Norsun'' sailed under the

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

flag and was owned by the Dutch half of the joint-venture, while the ''Norsea'' was British. In 1996 ownership transferred to

P&O Ferries P&O Ferries is a British shipping company that operates ferry, ferries from Scotland to Northern Ireland, and from England to Continental Europe (France, Belgium and the Netherlands). The company was created in 2002 through mergers and acquisi ...

when Nedlloyd sold its 50% stake to P&O. The ships sailed the Rotterdam route until 2001 when they were replaced by the and the . In 2002 the ships were transferred to the

Zeebrugge Zeebrugge (; from , meaning "Bruges-on-Sea"; , ) is a village on the coast of Belgium and a subdivision of Bruges, for which it is the modern port. Zeebrugge serves as both the international port of Bruges-Zeebrugge and a seafront resort with ...

-Hull route, again replacing ''Norstar'' and ''Norland''. Both ships were internally modernised before entering service on this new route. ''Norsun'' was renamed ''Pride of Bruges'', her sister ship becoming ''Pride of York'' In October 2016 it was announced that the two ships would be refitted. In October 2020, P&O announced that ''Pride of Bruges'' and ''Pride of York'' were to be taken out of service due to the decline in traffic caused by the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. On 15 December 2020, P&O announced on Twitter that the service would be stopped from 1 January 2021. Both ''Pride of Bruges'' and sister ship ''Pride of York'' were sold to

Docking

Hull

''Pride of Bruges'' docked at terminal 2, King George Dock, Hull. Just a few hundred yards away is the terminal for the Hull-Rotterdam ferries. To leave Hull the ship had to squeeze through the lock bow first which only has a few centimetres of clearance on each side. To come back to dock in Hull, she passed through the lock bow first before she had to turn clockwise and reverse into the dock.

Zeebrugge

Zeebrugge was much easier to dock at compared to Hull. The ship simply sailed into Zeebrugge harbour, turned to starboard into a docking area just south of Albert-II Dok and backed into the berth, opening her stern door on the linkspan.

In the media

The ''Pride of Bruges'' featured in Episode Three of the BBC Documentary ''Engineering Giants: Ferry Strip-Down'', first broadcast on

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air Public service broadcasting in the United Kingdom, public broadcast television channel owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's second flagship channel, and it covers a wide range of subject matte ...

on Sunday 29 July 2012. Her sister ship, ''

MS Pride of York MS ''GNV Aries'' was a ferry built as MS ''Norsea'' for North Sea Ferries as part of their response to the need for larger vessels in the mid to late 1980s. The 1974 ships and were proving to be very popular, and were running at capacity. Ther ...

'', was also shown.

References

External links

Norsun
record on The Ferry Site

on Belgium ferry site {{DEFAULTSORT:GNV Antares Ferries of Belgium Ferries of the United Kingdom 1986 ships Ships of P&O Ferries Ships built in Japan