This Is Guernsey

HD FERRIES has cancelled its Cherbourg service after just one sailing. Only about 10 people were booked to travel on Friday.

It has replaced it with a direct service to St Malo.  The company’s Phil Jones said it realised it would need to launch a full marketing campaign for the route to be successful.

‘We have stopped serving Cherbourg because we had so few bookings,’ he said.  ‘We have had very few advanced bookings, certainly far fewer than we had predicted.’ He said the lack of interest indicated that people wanted to go to St Malo instead.

‘We are still very enthusiastic about the route, but will have to try and persuade people that there are good reasons to go to Cherbourg,’ he said.

‘We were also very mindful that people from Guernsey going to St Malo had to go via Jersey and we wanted to make it possible for them to go direct.’

The company will attempt a Cherbourg service again in 2009.

Customers who have booked to travel there have been contacted with an offer of alternative arrangements.

The lack of support for the Cherbourg route is the latest difficulty to hit HD Ferries.

Its 2008 service started nearly two weeks late because of delays caused by essential parts being lost in the post and poor weather.

Last week it was forced to miss the usual Jersey stop out of its service to St Malo because a computer glitch meant the boat was overbooked.

The direct service to St Malo starts on 18 April. It will operate on Fridays only until 13 June and then on Mondays as well from 16 June until September.

The existing service via Jersey will continue to provide Guernsey customers with a second sailing on those days.

CEO Chris Howe-Davies said: ‘We are launching direct services between Guernsey and St Malo to meet the growing demand for low-cost ferry travel.’