Olau Line
Parent TT-Line | |
Olau Line was a
History
Olau Line was founded in 1956 by the Danish businessman Ole Lauritzen. Originally the company concentrated in chartering tankers and cargo ships to other shipping companies, but in 1974 Olau Line started a car/passenger ferry services from Sheerness in the United Kingdom to Vlissingen in the Netherlands and from Copenhagen (Denmark) to Aalborg (Denmark). The latter line was closed after merely a month of service.[1] Between 1974 and 1976 the consistence of Olau's fleet varied greatly, until in 1976 the company acquired M/S Apollo from Rederi AB Slite and renamed her MS Olau Kent and chartered M/S Finnpartner from Finnlines, renaming her MS Olau Finn. These two ships formed the Olau fleet for the next four years.
In 1977 Olau attempted to start a service from Sheerness to
In the late 1980s TT-Line decided to replace the Olau Hollandia and Olau Britannia with new ships. In 1986 and 1987 the company had taken delivery of two cruise ferries for their route between Germany and Sweden, and it was decided that two additional sisters of the same type would be built for Olau Line. These were delivered in 1989 and 1990, and like their predecessors were also named MS Olau Hollandia and MS Olau Britannia.
The new Olau Hollandia and Olau Britannia were more than twice the size of the old ships, and they soon proved to be too large for the route they were built for unless working practices could change.[2] Due to high operating costs the ships were taken out of the German ship registry (which required expensive German crewing) and registered in Luxembourg in January 1993, but action by the German Seamen's Union, whose members crewed the vessels, forced the ships to be re-registered in Germany just a month later. In 1994 TT-Line made plans to move the ships under Bahamian flag, but when the German Seamen's Union protested again, TT-Line decided to close down Olau Line in May 1994.[2][3][4] At the time P&O Ferries were looking for new tonnage for their Portsmouth to Le Havre route and had identified the two Olau ships as suitable, while TT-Line (which had also been having financial issues) did not want the distraction of continuing labour issues at its UK subsidiary.[2]
Following the closure of Olau Line the second Olau Hollandia and Olau Britannia were chartered to P&O Ferries, who used them successfully for many years on the Portsmouth—Le Havre service.
Ships
Not a complete list.
- MS Olau East (1974–1975)
- MS Bastø V (1974–1975, chartered)
- MS Olau West (1974–1976)
- MS Olau Dana (1975–1976, chartered)
- MS Olau Kent (1976–1980)
- MS Olau Finn (1976–1981, chartered)
- MS Espresso Olbia (1980–1981, chartered)
- MS Olau Hollandia (1980) - (1980-1988)
- MS Olau Britannia (1982) (1982–1990)
- MS Olau Hollandia (1989) (1989–1994)
- MS Olau Britannia (1990) (1990–1994)
References
Notes
Unless otherwise noted, all data is from Olau Line at Simplon Postcard, retrieved 20 May 2007.
- ^ (in Swedish) M/S Grenaa (1964) Archived 9 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine at Fakta om Fartyg, retrieved 20 May 2007
- ^ OCLC 832558109.
- ^ "M/S Olau Hollandia (1989)" (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 29 July 2012. at Fakta om Fartyg, retrieved 20 May 2007
- ^ "M/S Olau Britannia (1990)" (in Swedish). Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. at Fakta om Fartyg, retrieved 20 May 2007
Bibliography
- Cowsill, Miles; Hendy, John (1990). Olau. Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire: Ferry Publications. ISBN 1871947057.
- Ogilvie, Alan (1994). Inside Olau: the life and death of a ferry company: Sheerness - Vlissingen 1974-1994. Kilgetty, Pembrokeshire: Ferry Publications. ISBN 1871947235.
- Ortel, Kai (2014). TT-Line through five decades. Ramsey, Isle of Man: Ferry Publications. ISBN 9781906608613.
External links
- (in Swedish) Olau Line fleet list at Fakta om Fartyg