 | |
| Founded | 1956 |
|---|---|
| Defunct | 1994 |
| Fate | Dissolved |
| Headquarters | Sheerness, United Kingdom |
Area served | United Kingdom, Netherlands |
| Services | Passenger transportation, Freight transportation |
| Parent | TT-Line |
Olau Line was a shipping company that existed from 1956 to 1994. It operated a ferry service from the United Kingdom to the Netherlands from 1974 until 1994. Originally based in Denmark, the company passed under the ownership of the German TT-Line in 1980.
Olau Line was founded in 1956 by the Danish businessman and former student of Southampton School of Navigation; Ole Lauritzen. [1] The name was originally chosen as a combination between Ole's christian and surname to avoid confusion with ships owned by the similarly named J. Lauritzen. [2]
Originally the company concentrated in chartering tankers and cargo ships to other shipping companies, after a short lived association with Thanet Line, [2] in 1974 Olau Line started a car/passenger ferry services from Sheerness in the United Kingdom to Vlissingen in the Netherlands [3] and from Copenhagen (Denmark) to Aalborg (Denmark). The latter line was closed after merely a month of service. [4] 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 Dunkirk, France, but this was not successful. By the end of the 1970s the company was in heavy debt, and in 1979 Ole Lauritzen was forced to sell 50% of Olau Line to the West Germany-based TT-Line.
The following year Lauritzen sold his remaining shares of the company to TT-Line, the proceeds from which he used to fund his new company; Dunkerque Ramsgate Ferries (DRF), which launched in May 1980 and collapsed in early September the same year. This collapse also affected the operations of Olau Line in that Olau Kent was owned by Lauritzen personally and then leased to Olau Line with the result being that DRF's collapse saw Olau Kent arrested in port due to outstanding debts. [5] [6] [7] This led to the cessation of the ship on Olau Line services and its immediate departure from the fleet.
At the time of TT-Line taking control, their logo was adopted as the new logo for Olau Line, but with red and blue colours instead of TT-Line's yellow and blue. TT-Line decided to invest in new, large state-of-the-art cruiseferries for Olau services. These were delivered in 1981 and 1982 as MS Olau Hollandia and MS Olau Britannia, respectively. Unlike Olau's earlier ships, most of which were registered in the United Kingdom, the new ships were registered in TT's homeland Germany.
Olau Hollandia was the first newbuild ever to be built for Olau Line and along with her sister Olau Britannia were more than twice the size of the largest ferries operated by Olau before that point (they were also larger than any ships operated by TT-Line at the time). The Olau Hollandia was built to be "NATO-compatible", so that she could easily be converted to a troopship if required. She was also built with a thicker hull than normal, enough to be classified under Finnish ice class 1 A Super (the highest possible class) when she later began service on the Baltic Sea in 1989, without any structural changes to her hull. [8]
In the late 1980s TT-Line decided to replace the Olau Hollandia and Olau Britannia with new ships. In 1986 and 1987 the parent company had taken delivery of two cruiseferries for their route between Germany and Sweden, these were the first two of the so-called Peter Pan class cruiseferries; MS Peter Pan and MS Nils Holgersson. TT-line decided to order two more ships of the Peter Pan-type, which 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 firm was voted best ferry line serving The Netherlands in 1991 and the following year was awarded a five star rating by The AA. [3]
The new Olau Hollandia and Olau Britannia were more than twice the size of the old ships they had replaced, and they soon proved to be too large for the route they were built for unless working practices could change. [9] 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. Subsequently, TT-Line drew up plans for swapping the Olau ships with the ships in Trelleborg—Travemünde service, and moving the resulting new Olau ships into Bahamian registry, but when the German Seamen's Union protested again, TT-Line decided to close down Olau Line in May 1994. [9] [10] [11] 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. [9]
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.
 |
| Name | Built | In service | Tonnage | History |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Olau Vig | 1973 (Hatlo Verksted, Ulsteinvik, Norway) | 1974 | Sank in 2013 off Puerto el Guamache, Venezuela [12] [13] | |
| Olau East | 1974–1975 | |||
| Bastø V | 1974–1975 | |||
| Olau West | 1974–1976 | |||
| Olau Dana | 1975–1976 | |||
| Olau Kent | 1970 (Jos L. Meyer Verft, Papenburg, Germany) | 1976–1980 | 4,371 GT | Scrapped at Aliaga Ship Breaking Yard in 2021 [14] |
| Olau Finn | 1976–1981 | |||
| Express Olbia | 1980–1981 | |||
| Olau Hollandia (1980) | 1980 (Seebeckwerft, Bremerhaven, Germany) | 1980-1988 | 14,981 GT | Currently in service (as of 2025) as Almariya with Trasmediterránea [15] [16] |
| Olau Britannia (1982) | 1982 (Seebeckwerft, Bremerhaven, Germany) | 1982–1990 | 15,604 GT | Sold in 2025 for use "as a floating hotel in a large port in the Far East" [17] [18] |
| Wesertal | 1983 1986–1988 | |||
| Wuppertal | 1986 | |||
| Belinda Nordborg | 1988 1990 | |||
| Argo | 1989 | |||
| Olau Hollandia (1989) | 1989 (Schichau Seebeckwerft, Bremerhaven, Germany) | 1989–1994 | 33,336 GT [19] | Currently in service (as of 2025) as GNV Cristal with Società Navigazione Alta Velocità [20] |
| Olau Britannia (1990) | 1990 (Schichau Seebeckwerft, Bremerhaven, Germany) | 1990–1994 | 33,336 GT [21] | Currently in service (as of 2025) as GNV Atlas with Società Navigazione Alta Velocità [22] |
In July 1994, the owners of the port at Sheerness; Mersey Docks and Harbour Company commenced a new single ship, freight only ferry service called Ferrylink Freight Service, with a further ship added in September 1994. [23]
This service was rebranded as Eurolink Ferries in April 1995, [24] with the introduction of passenger services initially with a single ship, with a second added a couple of months later. [25] In August 1996, MDHC announced passenger services would cease, but freight would continue whilst a buyer for the loss-making routes was sought, due to increased competition from other ferry companies and the then recently opened Eurotunnel service through the Channel Tunnel. [26] Losses had reached £4.5 million in the first six months of 1996, on top of losses of £1.9 million in the preceding six month period. [27] No buyer was found and full closure by the end of 1996 was announced in November of that year [28] with losses reaching £9.1 million. [29]
Eurolink Ferries ceased operations on 1 December 1996 with customers being offered space on the Dartford-Vlissingen service of Jacobs Holdings subsidiary; Dart Line under a pooling agreement. [30] Jacobs was owned by former Sally Line executive; Michael Kingshott. [31]
Unless otherwise noted, all data is from Olau Line at Simplon Postcard, retrieved 20 May 2007.
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