North Sea ferry to Tyneside 'hastily arranged'

A hastily-arranged North Sea ferry brought travellers back to north-east England, as UK flights continued to be disrupted by a volcanic ash cloud.

A Norwegian travel agency contacted the Port of Tyne to find out if it could send a specially-chartered ship from Stavanger, carrying 49 passengers.

Normally, such an operation takes about 18 weeks to organise, but the journey was arranged in just 18 hours.

The MS Gann arrived at the North Shields port on Sunday morning.

Harbour master Captain Michael Nicholson received a call from the ship's master on Friday night.

He said: "To receive a request at such short notice and so late in the day, I initially assumed the ship must be a relatively small pleasure vessel.

'Pulled together'

"However the MS Gann is over 100m long and the master wanted to set sail that evening.

"I advised him not to leave until I had been able to confirm that arrangements could be made to accommodate a vessel of this size and the necessary agencies available given the fact he was carrying passengers."

Shipping agent David Briggs was called upon to help put the arrangements into place.

The ash from Iceland is continuing to disrupt flights across the UK

He said: "Given the short notice of this request, and the fact that Port of Tyne received it late on Friday [it was] potentially too late to arrange anything.

"We had to wait till Saturday before getting confirmation from the border agencies."

Mr Briggs said he had the "highest regard" for the way staff at the port had pulled together.

The MS Gann, which is normally used to train sea cadets in Norway, has since made the return journey to Scandinavia, carrying 92 passengers.

The Port of Tyne said it was currently in negotiations to find out if similar crossings could be arranged in the coming days.

The last regular ferry crossing from the North East to Norway was scrapped by DFDS in 2008, partly due to competition from the airlines which now find their services grounded.

Air traffic control body Nats has extended the ban on flights in English airspace until at least 1900 BST on Monday.

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