Talk:List of ships of Serco Marine Services

Red Ensign

Does Serco Marine actually operate any vessels other than for the MoD? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 12:13, 13 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Yes. Serco also manage (but do not own) the five ferries on NorthLink Ferries' services between mainland Scotland and Orkney/Shetland. From 2008-2012 they managed the Woolwich Ferry for Transport for London. - Davidships (talk) 03:37, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, should the ferries be listed as well? Murgatroyd49 (talk) 09:37, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Looking into it further, that may be misleading. Those ferries are operated by Serco Ltd - indeed, Serco Marine Services Ltd ceased trading in December 2022, at the end of the 15-year PFI contract, and has been wound up. All the vessels that they had acquired were sold to the MOD, who established a new entity "Defence Marine Services". At the same time Serco Ltd were contracted on a "follow-on" basis to continue to provide the same services for 27/33 months, pending decision on a new 10-year management contract, which includes the procurement of 36 new vessels for MOD (mostly replacements), on which I have not seen any announcement yet. I'll update this article on this shortly as best as I can.

On the ensign question, the dockyard-based vessels seem to be still flying the red ensign, despite the transfer to MOD. However, the deep sea vessels, SD VICTORIA/SD NORTHERN RIVER, changed to the (undefaced) blue ensign from 2023 (but no RS for that, only photos). So I am not sure that the owned/non-owned difference is real. - Davidships (talk) 13:49, 15 November 2024 (UTC)[reply]