Salty Benimars

[Stewart J]

3 nice shiny new Benimars on aft deck of Cap Finistere, we suffered bad weather overnight resulting in vessel not docking inortsmouth till 5pm today almost 3 hours late. They are covered in salt, mind you we have been on same deck twice over the years and the salt took some shifting. Awful photo but lounge windows are covered in salt.

 

[SpeedyDux]

Sounds like a tapas dish. Chaussons in Garlic, anyone?

 

[David and Sally]

Saw that on our way back too.

 

[WESTY66]

@Howard H i wouldn’t be holding onto yours too much longer, I’d go give that mobilvetta a closer look

 

[Howard H]

Quality build mate ,they can stand a bit of salt @WESTY66

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[WESTY66]

Quality build mate ,they can stand a bit of salt @WESTY66

You posted this at 3.42am!! Can u not sleep with worry that the mighty Benimar is going to fall to bits, or are you in the Far East?

Me, I’m just going to work to pay for your b####y pension

 

[tony garvin]

This is our Frankia in the middle on outward journey in October, not happy as our original sailing cancelled & had to wait 6 days before another sailing available !!!

 

[wiljoy]

We had our van on the open deck two years ago and suffered a lot of damage.
The satdish was ripped off and the windows had to be replaced. The peppering caused by the salt made the side and rear needing a machine polish with tcut. Point blank refused to be outside earlier this year.

 

[martin2603]

Don’t get salty or seasick in the Tunnel !

 

[Howard H]

You posted this at 3.42am!! Can u not sleep with worry that the mighty Benimar is going to fall to bits, or are you in the Far East?

Me, I’m just going to work to pay for your b####y pension

Just worrying that elldis of yours will get round Germany next year .

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[Minxy]

No way would I let my camper sit outside on a deck, not even for a Calais crossing ... the damage that could be cause may not be seen for a long while if the salty air/water has got into some of the electrics, chassis etc and started to cause corrosion. I'll stick to the tunnel!

 

[trophychap]

We were on the outside on the Dover Calais route one time it took ages to get the salt off the windows and mirrors, every time they dried out they went White again on the way home.

 

[WESTY66]

No way would I let my camper sit outside on a deck, not even for a Calais crossing ... the damage that could be cause may not be seen for a long while if the salty air/water has got into some of the electrics, chassis etc and started to cause corrosion. I'll stick to the tunnel!

@Howard H it doesn’t sound good for your benimars internals!! I would get shut sharpish!! I wonder if the salt had rotted the fridge vents away??? And it’s probably just gnawing at the next thing that’s gonna fall off, I’m just glad you’re looking after my alloys

 

[Baldybazza]

We had a tracking solar panel (Alden Phenix) on our van during the Biscay crossing back from Spain. It never worked again after being out on deck in rough weather.
Bazza

 

[ianandkath]

View attachment 266397 3 nice shiny new Benimars on aft deck of Cap Finistere, we suffered bad weather overnight resulting in vessel not docking inortsmouth till 5pm today almost 3 hours late. They are covered in salt, mind you we have been on same deck twice over the years and the salt took some shifting. Awful photo but lounge windows are covered in salt.

we was on the same boat, weather was bad,and in the morning we had a walk around the ship.
saw the 3 m/h and said to the wife ,it looks bad, brand new ones left outside.
ps, that was us in the larger rv.

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[maz]

View attachment 266397 3 nice shiny new Benimars on aft deck of Cap Finistere, we suffered bad weather overnight resulting in vessel not docking inortsmouth till 5pm today almost 3 hours late. They are covered in salt, mind you we have been on same deck twice over the years and the salt took some shifting. Awful photo but lounge windows are covered in salt.

Thank you for posting this, and thanks to all the other replies in this thread highlighting the practice of placing motorhomes on an open deck. I had no idea and just thought that all vehicles would be on closed decks.

We were toying with the idea of sailing Portsmouth to Santander or Bilbao later this month. I had discovered that their ‘economie’ service meant you could end up on an open deck, but thought that their ‘cruise’ service would be better. However, when I checked which boat we would be on and found it would be the Cap Finistere I thought I’d read a bit more about the boat. Sure enough, on Brittany Ferries website page for Cap Finistere it says: Please note that on busier sailings a small number of vehicles may be parked in an open area on deck 5.

So I rang Brittany Ferries to ask how we could ensure our motorhome was not put on an open deck. The answer to this was that on the Cap Finistere there was no way of ensuring this. They could not guarantee that our van would be on a closed deck - there was no official policy of allocating space and it just depended on the loading officer of the day. Their solution was to suggest we book on the Pont Aven instead (which does not have any open deck) - but nor does it have any pet-friendly cabins which we would need. Also it sails from Plymouth not Portsmouth.

From what I’ve seen and read on this thread, it seems all too common for motorhomes to end up on the open deck. So they have lost our booking and we will be using the Eurotunnel instead.