Essaouira

Essaouira (Arabic: الصويرة‎), formerly known as Mogador, is a city in the western Moroccan economic region of Marrakesh-Safi, on the Atlantic coast. The modern name means "the little rampart", a reference to the fortress walls that still enclose part of the city.

Name and etymology

The name of the city is usually spelled Essaouira in Latin script, and الصويرة in Arabic script. Both spellings represent its name in Moroccan Arabic, ṣ-Ṣwiṛa. This is the diminutive (with definite article) of the noun ṣuṛ which means "wall (as round a yard, city), rampart". The pronunciation with pharyngealized /ṣ/ and /ṛ/ is a typically Moroccan development. In Classical Arabic, the noun is sūr (with plain /s/ and /r/), diminutive suwayrah. Hence the spelling of the name in Arabic script according to the classical pronunciation is السويرة al-Suwayrah (with sīn not ṣād).

In Shilha, the Berber language spoken by a sizeable proportion of the city's inhabitants, it is called Taṣṣuṛt. This name is formed from the borrowed noun ṣṣuṛ "rampart" by the addition of the feminine gender affixes ta- and -t. In Shilha, the feminine derivation is often used to form diminutives.

MS Viking Valiant

Pride of Le Havre was the name of ferry for P&O Ferries that sailed between Portsmouth and Le Havre from 1989 to 1994. From launch until 1994, she was known as the Viking Valiant for Townsend Thoresen and P&O. In 1994 she was renamed Pride of Cherbourg² for P&O and continued under this name until she was sold to El Salam Maritime in 2002. El Salam Maritime renamed her Pride of Al Salam 1 for El Salam Maritime. In 2004 she was renamed Nador and chartered to Comanav, she was again renamed Mogador for Comanav in 2005, sailing under this name until being scrapped in 2010.

History

Pride of Le Havre was built in 1975 at Aalborgs Værft A/S, Ålborg, Denmark as Viking Valiant for Townsend Thoresen to operate between Southampton and Le Havre or Cherbourg. She also saw service between Felixstowe and Zeebrugge. In 1984, Townsend Thoresen moved its western channel passenger services from Southampton to Portsmouth. After two years sailing from Portsmouth, Viking Valiant was sent to Bremerhaven in 1986 to be enlarged in a process known as jumboisation. This involved removing the superstructure of the vessel from its original hull, adding an upper vehicle deck and reattaching the superstructure to mostly new hull, the stern section of the hull was retained for use as part of the new hull. The enlarged vessel re-entered service later that same year and sailed between Portsmouth and Le Havre.