The mv Pride of Portsmouth was built in 1990 for the then Sheerness to Vlissingen route operated by Olau Line. She entered service under the name of mv Olau Britannia, replacing the 1980 ship of the same name.
Whilst in service for Olau they were awarded the coveted 'AA 5 Star' award several years running, sadly due to Industrial action by the German Unions Olau faced a difficult decision. The German Unions were insisiting on vastly over manning, dictating the opening hours of the onboard facilities and dictated where people could work on the ship. Due to this and resistance against swapping the ships with their smaller counterparts from parent company TT Line, Olau line accepted the easier route out of the problem and bareboat charterd the ships to P&O for five years and ceased trading. After a refit to bring the ships into line with the P&O European Ferries, as it was at the time, branding policy the ships entered service on the Portsmouth to Cherbourg route. This was a period of short term cover whilst the new berth deeper within Le Havre harbour was completed. Once this was completed the ships then soon slipped into their standard pattern of sailings to Le Havre that were to remain unchanged for the next 11 years.
The mv Pride of Portsmouth and her sister the mv Pride of Le Havre were ideally suited to rivalling the quality offered by P&O's rivals Brittany Ferries. Sadly after several years in service the Le Havre route gradually began to fall into decline and was during late 2004 following a business review it was annouched that the ships would be withdrawn from service and the route closed. The ship was due to be withdrawn at the end of 2004 however after discussions started with Brittany Ferries the ships and crews were granted a stay of execution and a new date was set for the end of September 2005 which if the deal went ahead with Brittany Ferries would have been the transfer date.
When it was initially announced that the route would close, Brittany Ferries expressed an interest in chartering the vessels from P&O and continuing to operate the Le Havre route - albeit in a different form. Due to the nature of this transaction, the British Mergers Commission began an investigation to ascertain whether a monopoly would exist out of Portsmouth as Brittany Ferries would then be operating on all continental routes from Portsmouth to France. During the investigation Brittany Ferries pulled out of the deal, with the route still struggling despite P&O withdrawing their Cherbourg service in January 2005 P&O announced that the axe was to finally fall. The last commercial sailing for the mv Pride of Portsmouth would be the 15:30 departure from Le Havre on Friday 30th September 2005.
Following being withdrawn from service and a couple of days in Portsmouth to de-store and remove all elements of the ship that P&O wished to transfer to the last remaining Portsmouth based ship mv Pride of Bilbao. The ship then headed for lay-up on the River Fal pending a departure to pastures new in January 2006. She has been renamed mv SNAV Lazio and will operate on the Naples to Palermo route.
Questions were asked at the time why the ships did not remain in service until the end of the year, but it was announced that it was more cost effective for P&O to have the ships laidup in Falmouth than operating on the Le Havre route for those final few months.
