Smyril Line / Norröna

[Ghostrider]

I cant find a link to the article about the new service, I think it was on Shetland Marine News which does not seem to have an archive, but I seem to remember that they have not decided yet how to deploy the vessel outside the weekly return trip to Copenhagen. This company are only planning to run a summer service so wont suffer Smyril's winter problem.

 

I think this might be the one you were wanting:

 

http://www.shetlandmarine.com/2006/05%20Oil%20&%20Shipping/more_trouble_for_smyril.htm

[Muppet]

Thanks Ghostrider, thats it.

 

Seems like they could be interested in Shetland anyhow, perhaps moreso if Smyril pull out.

[wasleys]

As an outsider might I express an opinion?

 

From the point of view of Shetland I would be sorry to see Smyril pull out. The number of visitors that come on the ferry in the summer must be significant to local tourism and the loss would be unfortunate.

 

However from a personal point of view Smyril's use of a mainland port would be beneficial. We recently took our car to Faroe and onto Iceland on Norröna. The fare on Northlink was not far short of the fare on Smyril. We decided it would be wise to spend a couple of nights in Shetland outbound to guard against any problems with sailings from Aberdeen. We had to spend a night in Shetland on return. Additionally there were, of course, two nights on board Northlink. Norröna's use of a mainland port would have reduced our travel time by several days and would have made the trip quite a bit cheaper.

 

In Iceland we saw many vehicles from the European mainland, but very, very few UK cars. Whilst there will be several factors at play it seems likely that the ease of a through sea passage from Hantsholm or Bergen compared with the need to break journey at Lerwick must be significant. I would think Smyril would be likely to gain more traffic from calling on UK mainland than they would lose by pulling out of Lerwick. (Whether they could cope with extra traffic in the summer may be debatable. Two of the three legs of our journey with them saw Norröna very full - loading and unloading was far from well organised, but that's a different story!)

 

maybe we should be talking to those nice people in Norway to see if they could find a spare ship for the summer months. With the way mega cruise ferries are taking over the Coastal Express service they might just have a small ship that they use in the winter available in the summer.

Hurtigruten currently has two small ships in coastal service in the winter when the big ones are down south. In the summer Nordstjernen is in Svalbard and Lofoten does short cruises in Norway. I don't think they have anything to spare.

 

Michael

[david]

Interesting news yesterday about possible plans to make the Norrona call in Lerwick between Hanstholm and Torshavan, but not on route to Bergen, instead calling in at Scrabster.

 

Seems an odd choice, and it still means 4 calls a week into Lerwick. Who thinks this will last only a year to keep Shetland happy?

[Muppet]

Interesting news yesterday about possible plans to make the Norrona call in Lerwick between Hanstholm and Torshavan, but not on route to Bergen, instead calling in at Scrabster.

 

Seems an odd choice, and it still means 4 calls a week into Lerwick. Who thinks this will last only a year to keep Shetland happy?

 

Do you (or anyone) know any more details of the timetable? It could be Torshavn/Lerwick/Hanstholm/Lerwick/Torshavn meaning two calls a week.

 

Be interesting to see how they get on in Scrabster.

 

And yes, i think your right about it lasting a year. By that time the original condition of our investment will have expired and they can do what they please.

[david]

From what I could gather it was going to be each way, so a holiday to Denmark was possible without a trip up to Faroe.

 

I don't know where I got the 4 times a week figure from, but I'm sure I heard that number on Radio Shetland last night.

 

I dont think the schedule is set in stone yet, the board of directors have to agree to it first.

[david]

I see the Norrona has managed to hole herself again in Faroe.

 

Not so bad this time though!

 

http://www.portal.fo/myndir/myndatema/b8fcf68364ecfb06c567f58b0fd85710.jpg

[Muppet]

Maybe thats a handy receptacle for the £25 000 the Council has just agreed to pay them for each trip they make to Shetland next year!

[Frances144]

Tell me you are joking, please!

[Muppet]

Tell me you are joking, please!

 

Sorry, i'm not. They are paying out £250 000 for marketing and a £400 000 loan directly to Smyril Line according to Drew Ratter on Radio Shetland tonight. Thats £650 000.

 

The Norrona will call here once a week for the 10 week summer season, and twice a week for the 8 week shoulder seasons.

 

I'm no Mathemagician, but that works out at £25 000 per visit to me!

[Frances144]

I am now very depressed.

 

But thanks for confirming this for me. I missed the Radio Shetland news. I think it will be very interesting to see how the Shetland public react to this new cash injection.

 

(Not that it will make any difference to the Council - they will do whatever they want, regardless of what anyone else thinks).

[shetlander]

Once the contractual obligations have been fulfilled, Shetland needs to cut its losses and walk away from this one once and for all. Yes it’s a shame that the link will be lost, but we can’t keep on flinging Smyril the amounts of public money we’re speaking about here for an indefinite period, no matter what the perceived benefits are for the local economy or tourism industry.

[Wheesht]

I can see the reasons for our council seeking to secure a stop here but I am afraid what Drew has negotiated is very poor indeed, in fact it hardly appears to be a negotiated settlement - more yet another appeasement that has cost us more money.

 

250k plus a loan of 400k from our, which we will likely never see again.

 

As I understand it the most popular by far of Scandinavian destinations for people traveling through or from Shetland has been Norway and Iceland, yet those have both been dropped for Denmark?

 

Timetable my elbow, would you have any faith and book something?

 

PS. Does Morgan ever speak now, after all this was his baby?

[JustMe]

Would I book with Smyril......certainly not with any confidence that I would be able to depart and return at the specified times.....make that specified weeks. There have been lots of missed calls into Lerwick and two well published mishaps in Faroe.

 

If we accept that the Faroese crew are competent seamen then there is only one possible conclusion that can be drawn from this.......the ship is totally wrong for this route and the sooner Smyril sells the thing and invests in a ship designed for the route and the ports used the sooner Smyril will show a profit.

[islandhopper]

"Shetland is a wonderful destination, the problem is that our passengers don't ask for it, and among the European countries Shetland is 100 per cent unknown, and marketing it is too costly."

(Hendrik Egholm, quoted from the Shetland Marine News)

 

Shetland wonderful, that's right.

Faeroese don’t ask for it, that's probably right.

Among European countries Shetland is 100 per cent unknown – probably right, at least Smyril has done everything possible, that we don't know any longer how to reach it.

Marketing is too costly – bloody nonsense!

 

In the good old days when we had "the bloody" J.A. Reinecke acting as Smyril's agent for Germany and Austria and Switzerland, the phone bill for getting detailed information and to do the booking was sometimes higher than the costs for the ticket itself.

But Reinecke looked to it that Smyril was well represented in daily newspapers, weekly travelling specials or within monthly magazines such as those published by the automobile clubs.

 

But what happened when Smyril opened its office in Kiel to take over Reinecke's job? Nothing. The small but regular adverts in black and white disappeared. Then some colored adverts where to be seen, quarterly adverts in the beginning, now occasional adverts.

 

It is not more than an example, but it tells us a lot:

In March, when folks over here do their detailed planning and bookings for their holidays in Scotland and / or Shetland, the following advert was published in the ACE-Lenkrad (That's the monthly magazine of the second biggest automobile club in Germany):

 

http://www.hegoja.com/Wolfgang/smyril.jpg

 

That was in March, 2006. Do you see any word about Shetland … or Norway???

Both destinations were simply somehow "outsourced". That's plain company policy, not due to declining or hard to win markets.

 

Please, Mr. Egholm, take notice that the continent had lost such England / Scotland links as Esbjerg-Newcastle link or the Hamburg-Newcastle. The boat leaving Hanstholm could have been full all this summer, especially if you would have offered to the continent, what is obviously available in Scandinavia, at least in Sweden and Norway. You should have given us the same opportunities to buy an Orkneyjar- or a Skotlandet-Billjetter, as they are available from Scandinavian agents and the boat would have been overcrowded last year, this year, next year. Think a bit about the markets east of the line from Hamburg to Berlin, think about the growing markets in Poland or Czech Republic and the Baltic states – today, the best alternative for all those is Rotterdam/Ijmuiden, some 1500km detour to reach the North – one way!

 

Mr. Egholm, don't blame your customers neither in Shetland nor on the continent – do what's your job!