Eco-friendly vessel being designed for P&O Ferries

A new environmentally friendly car-passenger ferry model is being developed for use by P&O Ferries on its route from Dover to Calais.

Engineering firm Sweco Industry announced that it had won a contract from shipbuilding company STX Europe to build hulls and machinery for the ferries, which will be built at the STX shipyard in Rauma, Finland.

With a length of 210 metres, a weight of 49,000 gross tonnes and capacity to carry 2,000 passengers, the new vessels will be the largest ferries in the English Channel.

The ships will have a number of characteristics designed to make them as environmentally friendly as possible, such as strict limits for their consumption of fuel.

P&O Ferries will receive the new vessels, which have a total value of €360 million (£341 million), in 2010 and 2011.

While its crossing from Dover to Calais is P&O Ferries' busiest and most valuable service, the company also operates popular routes from Hull to Rotterdam and Zeebrugge and from Portsmouth to Bilbao.