Fred. Olsen & Co.
Encyclopedia : F : FR : FRE : Fred. Olsen & Co.
Fred Olsen or Fred. Olsen is the name of a large shipping company based in Norway with it's worldwide headquarters based in Oslo Norway. The company was founded by Petter Olsen in 1848.
Petter's son Thomas Fredrik "Fred" Olsen (1857-1933) took the company from a small business with a few boats into a powerful multinational shipping and ship building business.
After the first Fred Olsen's death, his son Rudolf Olsen took over the company.
Rudolf's son, also named Fred Olsen (born January 1, 1929), is now in control of the company, which now is also in the oil business and owns Timex Corporation.
The current Fred Olsen has been called "The Norwegian Howard Hughes" for his great wealth and avoidance of publicity; although a recluse he is also reputed to be the inspiration for the look of The Simpsons cartoon character Montgomery Burns [link]. It was announced on January 3 2006, that Fred Olsen was to sell almost his entire collection of Edvard Munch paintings, through Sotheby's on February 7, estimated to be worth around NOK 100 million (USD 15 million). Fred.Olsen is today owned by Mrs. Anette S. Olsen, fifth generation of the family.
Fred. Olsen & Shipping
The Shipping aspects of Fred Olsen & Co. operate under two distinct Brand's. Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines and Fred. Olsen Express/Lineas Fred OlsenFred. Olsen Cruise Lines
Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines operates a fleet of four modern cruise liners to destinations in Canada, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe. In May 2006 Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines announced it planned to purchase a fifth ship from NCL Norwegian Cruise Line, formerly known as the Norwegian Crown. The 34,242 ton vessel has 1,104 lower berths and first entered service in 1988. Fred. Olsen Cruise Lines expects to take delivery of the Norwegian Crown in November 2007, and hopes to have re-fitted the vessel and have it operating under a new name by early 2008. Fred Olsen Cruises is based in Ipswich in Suffolk, United Kingdom.Fred. Olsen Express
Fred. Olsen Express is an inter-island ferry service based in the Canary Islands, Spain. The company operates a fleet of five modern fast-ferries, including the world's first tri-maran fast ferry the Benchijigua Express, which entered service in 2005. Fred Olsen Express operates 5 routes throughout the Canaries.History of Fred. Olsen Express
Fred. Olsen Express was founded in 1974 as Ferry Gomera, S.A. The First sailing took place 8 July 1974, when a ferry set sail from the Gomeran Capital of San Sebastian de La Gomera for the town of Los Cristianos in Tenerife. The first ferry to operate the route was christened the Benchijigua, which is named after a small village located in the South of La Gomera. It also was in keeping with a long tradition of Fred. olsen which was that all name of the company's ships should begin with the letter B.Until this first sailing the island of La Gomera had practically been isolated and was only ever visited by a single boat which came to collect bannanas and tomatoes that the island produced to be exported to Europe and in return dropped of supplies for the Island. It was the opening of this first route by Fred Olsen that really brought about changes for the Gomerans. The ferry even set sail for emergencies, sometimes with only a single ambulance and patient on-board, and for the simple reason that if the ferry did not take the patient the patient would have died.
The route between Gomera and Tenerife initially operated 3 times a day in each direction and took 80 minutes, (the current crossing time is now half this) and was capable of handling 400 passengers and around 60 cars. Within six months of the route opening 100,000 people had used the crossing and this was a figure which far exceeded expectations. As a gesture of goodwill a free coach was provided from Los Cristianos in the South of Tenerife to the capital Santa Cruz de Tenerife. Five years after the launch of the service a new larger and faster ferry was added; The Bonanza. The ship had previously been served with the company in Northern Europe, but was transferred to the Gomra route. Then again in 1989 still trading as Ferry Gomera the company introduced a route from Los Cristianos to San Sebastian de la Gomera using a ferry named the "SES Sant’ Agata" (later the Gomera Express) which was promoted as "fast and comfortable". The crossing took only 35 minutes. Also in 1989 a route was established between Playa Blanca, Lanzarote and Corralejo, Fuerteventura which was operated by Ferry Betancuria.
By 1990 Ferry Gomera had made a grand total of 29,095 ferry crossings and travelled 625,542 miles (1,163,800 kilometres or 29 trips around the world). the total number of vehicles carried was nearly 722,200,00. The route had also carried nearly 900 patients as well as 20 additional critical emergency crossings.
In 1994 Fred. Olsen signed a deal with the canarian Postal service to offer an on-board post office on board the Benchijigua Express. A fourth daily service was also added.
The year 2000 saw the entry of the Benchijigua Express on the Gomera route.
The Fred Olsen Cruise Lines fleet
- Boudicca
- Braemar (pictured above)
- Black Prince
- Black Watch
The Fred Olsen Express fleet
The following ships operate for Fred Olsen Express, a company based in tthe Canary Islands (Spain)See also
External links
- [FredOlsen.co.uk] in English
- [Olsen and Burns look alike?]
- [Olsen Spanish interests]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.