Channel Island Ferries The company was founded in August 1984 as Channel Island Ferries by a consortium made up of
Brittany Ferries,
Huelin Renouf and Mainland Market Deliveries (MMD) to compete with
Sealink British Ferries services to
Portsmouth and
Weymouth. Discussions had been taking place between consortium members and the
States of Jersey since May of that year and once the involvement of MMD became clear, their position as Sealink's then biggest freight customer led to robust exchanges. Channel Island Ferries established their service from Portsmouth to the Channel Islands using the ferry
Corbière, previously the
Benodet of Brittany Ferries. The maiden sailing for the company was on 27 March 1985 sailing from Jersey to Portsmouth via Guernsey, with
Terence Alexander, an actor who appeared in the then current TV series;
Bergerac, being the first passenger to board in his character's trademark white
Rolls-Royce. This followed a public open day on board the ship which attracted 8,000 visitors. This coupled with fares more than doubling on Sealink services (an ordinary adult fare went from £52 to £118) resulted in Channel Island Ferries gaining 85% of the passenger market from Portsmouth, this later dropped to 53% in 1986 after Sealink reorganised their fares and sailings to combat Channel Island Ferries following massive losses, reported to be in the order of £6 million. The company had made such an impact on the Channel Island market, coupled with the rise of air competition, and would be 50% owned by Channel Island Ferries and 50% by Sealink British Ferries.
Earl Godwin would provide a separate Sealink service to Cherbourg and there were no firm plans for the future of
Earl William. resulted in almost immediate strike action by the crews of the four Sealink vessels which included the blockade of Guernsey's only
linkspan by the
Earl William forcing Channel Island Ferries to suspend their service to the island for five days from 13 October, having run a temporary service involving discharging passengers using a temporary footbridge and shipping cars to Jersey and then back to Guernsey using the
Devoniun of Torbay Seaways. Sealink were unable to reach an agreement with their crew to join the new service which meant Sealink were not able to fulfil its agreement to provide the
Earl Granville and
Earl Harold for the new service. Channel Island Ferries later took out a series of high court injunctions against Sealink which allowed Channel Island Ferries to trade as British Channel Island Ferries and prevented Sealink for offering a service to the Islands for twelve months. Separately, Jersey authorities banned Sealink from serving St Helier for twelve months.
British Channel Island Ferries The original plan for 1987, running three ships from two ports, was unworkable due to the collapse of the joint venture, so the company needed two additional vessels to run a full service to the Channel Islands. Sealink's offer to charter the
Vortigern was not taken up as her cabin accommodation was insufficient, and BCIF instead chartered the Brittany Ferries freight ferry
Briezh-Izel to run alongside the
Corbière from Portsmouth, and the
Portelet to run the new service from Weymouth, scheduled to start on 15 April 1987. Once this issue was resolved, the company had a fairly successful first season, carrying nearly 138,000 passengers and around 28,000 cars by late September.
Portelet was laid up in Weymouth over the winter before being rechartered by BCIF in Spring 1988. Re-entering service after a £200,000 package of improvements, the 1988 season was less successful than the previous year with services by
Condor Ferries starting to make an impact on passenger numbers. allowing them to reduce crossing times to the islands by up to two hours. Services from Portsmouth ended with a New Year mini cruise which saw
Corbière depart on 30 December 1988, returning to port on 2 January 1989 to disembark passengers and vehicles before sailing to Poole to start the new service, and the Weymouth service was curtailed on 1 October 1988. She became a popular addition to the fleet. The
Briezh-Izel was initially replaced by the
Corbière running freight only until the arrival of the
Havelet, formerly the
Cornouailles, from Brittany Ferries' Truckline service on 10 May 1989. The move to Poole and the introduction of the
Rozel were successful for the company with passenger journeys rising by 20% during its first year, but growth in the freight market from the port was slow. The move by BCIF to Poole led to the establishment in 1989 of a rival joint venture service between Commodore Shipping and MMD from Portsmouth, called C&M Shipping. 1990 also saw BCIF join forces with
Emeraude Ferries and
Brittany Ferries to launch a 'French Connection' service which would allow a Poole-Jersey, Jersey-St Malo, St Malo-Portsmouth round trip to be booked as a single journey across the three operators. A 1990 refit saw the
Havelet arrested in port in November that year after a dispute over payment. The ship had sailed to Humber Ship Repairers in
Hull for a five week long project in April 1990 at a cost of £2 million. Humber Ship Repairers collapsed shortly after completion leading to a sub contractor remaining unpaid for a car ramp, despite BCIF having paid the full amount due to Humber. The sub contractor obtained a warrant for the arrest of the ferry from the
Admiralty Court leading to it being impounded at Poole for two days.
Downfall In late summer 1991 it was announced that the company had not renewed the charter of the
Rozel and that she would be replaced by the from Brittany Ferries, which was renamed
Beauport. This ship was smaller and not as popular with passengers as the
Rozel: this was one of the factors that contributed to the downfall of the company. In April 1993, Condor Ferries introduced a high speed
catamaran service from Weymouth to the Channel Islands for passengers and vehicles. This had a significant effect on BCIF, who until then had been the only operator of car-carrying services on the route. BCIF operated a reduced passenger service for that season and become involved in a
price war with Condor. In January 1994 it was announced that due to substantial losses, BCIF had been bought by Commodore Shipping. Freight services were transferred to Commodore Ferries at Portsmouth, and passenger operations moved to Condor at Weymouth, where the
Havelet would run a conventional service alongside the
Condor 10. Operations of under the BCIF name would cease on 22 January 1994, with around 100 staff being made redundant from that date. The move away from Poole by Condor resulted in a long-running legal battle with
Poole Harbour Commissioners, who claimed the move at short notice broke a ten-year contract with BCIF, which resulted in the loss of 35 jobs at the port. The deal, signed in 1989, had been worth £300,000 per year to the port. The commissioners had claimed £4 million damages from Condor, although an undisclosed settlement was reached between the two parties days before a court hearing in June 1996. ==Fleet==