Travel: Ships that pause in the night

REMEMBER the recent correspondence on the subject of where cross-Channel ferries go to at night to account for the fact that it seems to take much longer for journeys made during the hours of darkness?

Last Saturday I travelled by Brittany Ferries from St Malo to Portsmouth, a journey which should take nine hours but on Saturday nights takes - incredibly - 13. At check-in I was told this had something to do with non-availability of berths at Portsmouth on Sunday mornings.

And if your car is parked in that strange sort of 'attic' space on the Bretagne ferry you can spend another 45 minutes waiting to unload it (I won't upset Brittany Ferries by saying that this is as long as it would take to get by tunnel from Folkestone to Calais - if the tunnel ever gets around to opening, that is.)