Further Delays

On 12th June Irish Ferries regretfully announced that the delivery of the 50,400gt W.B. Yeats by German shipbuilder Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft & Co.KG (FSG), has been further delayed.  The new ship was due to commence sailings between Ireland and France from the 30th July 2018.  Because of the uncertainty caused by this additional delay, Irish Ferries had no option but to cancel all the planned sailings to France for the W.B. Yeats this summer, with the ship now likely to commence sailing in September.

The already embattled company had further woes on 27th June when the 50,934gt/2001 built Ulysses (affectionately known as The Big U) was withdrawn from service and sent to Harland & Wolff, Belfast, for repairs after only being able to achieve a maximum speed of 14 knots. The 26,375gt/2011 built Epsilon and 8,403gt/2001 built Dublin Swift were left to cope.

Stena Newbuild Confirmed

On 12th June Stena Line confirmed that the first of the company’s trio of new Irish Sea ships will be deployed on the Dublin-Holyhead route. In 2017 Stena announced a new build contract for a new generation of Ro-Pax ferry vessels, the Stena E-Flexer (above), with planned deliveries during 2020 and 2021.  In total 6 such vessels are being built by the AVIC Shipyard in Weihai, China with three earmarked for the Irish Sea and three chartered out by Stena Ro-Ro to DFDS (1 at Dover) and Brittany Ferries (2 at Portsmouth for Spanish services).

Alderney Shipping Heads New Ferry Service

Alderney has a new passenger ferry service to Guernsey in the form of the 12-seater South Boats built passenger catamaran Spike Islander,  seen above leaving Alderney on its maiden voyage on 13th July, which has been bought by a consortium of four shipping companies including Alderney Shipping and Faversham Ships. The service, marketed as The Little Ferry Company, will run two rotations daily until the end  of September.

Names Announced For Spanish Duo

Brittany Ferries announced in June that the two new ferries arriving for the Spanish routes in 2021/2022 will be named the Galicia and the Salamanca. The names were chosen following a competition among around 300 members of Brittany Ferries’ staff. To be based in Portsmouth, both E-Flexer ships (chartered from Stena Ro-Ro) will serve long-haul routes to Spain where passenger traffic has grown by 80% in the last decade.