7th January 1972
Guernsey Fisher makes its maiden voyage

Guernsey Fisher was a cargo ship built by James Fisher & Sons Ltd in 1971. It set sail for the Channel Islands for the very first time on 7 January 1972, with her maiden route linking Southampton and Guernsey. Weighing 1537 tons and stretching to just over 82m, she was the sister ship to the similarly-named Jersey Fisher. James Fisher & Sons retained ownership of the both ships and leased them to British Rail, which used them to provide a cargo service under its Sealink livery.

Despite her name, she didn’t always ply the seas between Guernsey and the mainland. Online forum posts from crew who worked on her through the 1970s and 1980s detail routes serving Portsmouth, Dublin, Le Havre, Garston and Belfast.

A name with a history

This particular Guernsey Fisher wasn’t the first ship to bear that name, either. Newspaper reports from the middle of the 19th century detail another Guernsey Fisher serving various British ports.

As is often the case, the Guernsey Fisher that set out on 7 January 1972 was sold and renamed several times during her working life. In the mid–1980s she was re-registered as Scafell and in the 1990s as Sveti Jere. She has since been decommissioned, after another couple of name changes – to Pine Coaster and eventually to Miramar – under the latter of which she was re-registered in Togo.

Her sister ship, Jersey Fisher, became the Commodore Challenger.

Category: Guernsey History | Other events tagged maritime, ships