Project Orient Ltd (POL) has been set up with a view to restarting a liner service between Southampton and Sydney. The 25-night voyage to Sydney will have a lead-in one-way fare of about £3,000 (E3,683) per passenger.
Discussions have already been held with European shipyards re the vessels in question. "To make the service viable we would need two ships, ideally [each] of 100,000gt for 2,200 passengers. In other words a four-star-plus ship," explains Nigel Lingard, non executive director of POL which is headed up by Asif Masshadi (once an executive on the Innovations catalogue).
The aim is to offer a monthly service in either direction. "To get market credibility you need to have pretty much a scheduled liner service," Lingard says. The classic route is via Cape Town, Fremantle and Perth to Sydney but variations are under consideration, including sailing via the Suez Canal and Singapore and also via the Panama Canal.
The key next step is to find an investor, such as a Sovereign Wealth Fund, which may well have an interest in where the ships are built, what route they sail and their design, for example vis a vis propulsion. Lingard says: "This might be a project that lends itself to LNG. Wartsila says it is perfectly feasible as the vessels will only call at major ports along the way."
Stephen Payne, naval architect on Cunard Line’s Queen Mary 2, Deltamarin and STX have all been involved in the early stages of the ship design.
Recreating the heritage of the golden age of travel is how Masshadi describes the Project with a catchphrase being an "old dream becomes a new reality".
By Susan Parker
