| COMPANY BACKGROUND |
| Magna Carta Steamship Co Limited was formed in 1999 following
the sale of Voyages Jules Verne & Serenessima. These were
companies that were founded/owned by Philip Morrell in 1978.
Morrell was a Barnardo’s boy who had variously & previously
worked as an apprentice stone mason, cleaner, butcher’s
assistant, Covent Garden worker, a ‘Golden egg’
kitchen assistant, a dresser at Drury Lane (1960’s My
Fair Lady) a travel clerk, a Benidorm rep (when Benidorm had
only 5 hotels) later progressing to be responsible for Thomson
operations world-wide outside Spain. In 1975 Morrell spent a
week with Lord (Roy) Thomson of Fleet in Tenerife. Thomson had
shortly afterwards been invited by Chou en Lai (the then much
revered Chinese Vice President) to accompany Chou at a spa close
to Canton – China at the time was still recovering from
the Cultural Revolution and certainly did not like tourism.
Exploiting the Chou/Thomson connection Morrell successfully
managed to convince the Chinese to accept regular tourist groups
and went onto dominate this market right up until 03rd June
1989 (Tian an Men Square) in the formation of Voyages Jules
Verne and more particularly the inauguration of a regular train
series from Victoria Station to Hong Kong (Kowloon) –
with the aptly named ‘Central Kingdom Express’. |
| During the Voyages Jules Verne period a number of innovative
travel concepts were launched, including in 1991 the first ‘London
to Peking Motor Challenge’. Perhaps more relevant here
though was the development of tourism on the waterways in Europe
& Egypt which was to go on to form the basis for the post
Tian an Men recovery in the company’s fortunes. By 1985
there were really only three major navigable European inland
waterways still not graced by the ubiquitous accommodation river
boats – the Douro, The Caledonian Canal and the Thames.
In 1985 Morrell bought the ‘English Lady’ then on
the Rhine and transported the vessel by dock-ship to the Douro
– some 25 years later under different ownership the vessel
still continues in operation under a different name. Today there
are more than 20 very much larger vessels operating on the Douro. |
| In 1999 the search was on by Morrell for a vessel that could
navigate the Caledonian Canal and the ‘open sea’.
Here the issue was not just the fact that the waterway had not
been previously exploited (by such accommodation vessels) but
rather the physical constraints of the locks (in being exactly
150 feet in length, 35 foot wide and a sea draught of 10 feet)
and being able to build a vessel to these constraints whilst
being highly manoeuvrable. This was the challenge given to the
Spanish designers and ship-builders and in August 2000 the ‘Lord
of the Glens’ established itself in the Highlands of Scotland. |
| It is by no accident that the Thames is the last to be developed
in this way. The river presents some quite formidable obstacles
inter alia being one time tidal, non tidal, shallow, deep, with
a fast current, huge tidal range, low arched bridges, narrow
locks, lack of mooring space and a labyrinthine regulatory environment.
In fact the river is very much organised both by the authorities
and local operators on a sectionised basis – no one it
seems to have looked/operated the river in a joined up way.
From a passenger appeal point of view London/environs and its
river would seem to have it all – a fantastic city and
pastoral riverscape, yet still it‘s development has not
happened. The conventional wisdom in river accommodation operations
being that to be economic accommodation vessels must have a
minimum of 6 meters above the water-line thus permitting two
accommodation decks, but the Thames does not allow this even
if the voyage is arranged around the tide since there are bridges
upstream of Teddington where the bridge heights are at 5.58
Meters and being non- tidal are fixed heights. This determines
that any vessel has to be longer to compensate for the height.
Length though is determined by the ability of the vessel to
turn in the river which in parts (especially upstream) is particularly
narrow – this together with the factors mentioned earlier
being the reasons that have dissuaded others from attempting
to exploit the river in the manner described herein. |
| Originally the designers were presented with the challenge
of designing a vessel that was long and thin and as with a train
one that could sub-divide, and thus in sub-dividing overcoming
the issues of height, navigable extent and turning issues. It
suffices to say here that the technical issues were resolved
but the costs were so prohibitive the idea was eventually abandoned. |
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