Brittany Ferries' new ship MS Galicia, which is to be deployed on the Portsmouth UK-Santander Spain route, arrived at Portsmouth International Port Tuesday morning, October 13, for berthing trials. The newbuild cruiseferry starts regularly scheduled crossings in December 2020.
Galicia will do a couple of roundtrips to/from the Cantabrian coastline each week. She is the first newbuild for Brittany Ferries since 2009. At 215 metres, Galicia is also the longest in the company’s fleet. Her initial see trials already took place in Weihai, China.
According to Brittany Ferries CEO Christophe Mathieu, fleet renewal was an integral part of their 5-year recovery plan, and the arrival of Galicia was "the result of a commission made in happier times."
Galicia is part of the operator's multi-million euro investment with plans for two further ferries.
The berthing port trials are due to ensure that the ship is ready to take on travellers from Portsmouth, with 3 km of lane metres onboard for passenger and freight traffic.
A couple of ships will have joined Galicia by 2023 - Salamanca and Santona - both powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas).