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Displaying items by tag: Ferry Industry

Operators in the ferry industry, reports BreakingNews.ie, have been accused of exploiting Ireland's vulnerability to Brexit to get the consumer rules they want.

In July, Irish Ferries, Stena Line and Brittany Ferries wrote to Taoiseach Leo Varadkar asking the government to intervene in a legal row over passengers compensation.

They claim they do not owe customers on cancelled ferries to France compensation because they can offer the option of using the "land-bridge' via Britain.

Labour's Transport spokesman Senator Kevin Humphreys said ferry operators should have the same responsibility to their customers as airlines.

Click here to read comments made by the Senator. 

Published in Ferry

In an obituary The Scotsman writes about the late Hamish Ross, ferry industry managing director, Born: 17, July 1943 in Lhanbryde, Morayshire. Died: 4 April, 2019, in Douglas, Isle of Man, aged 75.

Hamish Ross, who died in early April in the Hospice Isle of Man, was a prominent ­figure in the world of Irish Sea shipping over four decades, enjoying leadership roles with Sealink, one of the UK’s major ferry companies of the 1970s and 80s, Sea Containers (who introduced SeaCat fast ferries to the Irish Sea in the 1990s) and latterly with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company.

However, two of his finest achievements were delivered after his formal retirement in 2007 – as publisher and ­editor of the famous Sea Breezes shipping magazine, he steered the publication safely through to its centennial in 2019, and he also he spearheaded a successful campaign to erect a ­permanent memorial in ­tribute to the heroic ­sacrifice made by the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company ships and crews during the evacuation of ­Dunkirk in 1940.

Starting his secondary schooling at Keith Grammar School, Hamish then won a scholarship to Gordonstoun in 1958 through the shipping company Alfred Holt & Co. (Blue Funnel Line). Thus began a 60-year association with the sea.

The first chapter in ­Hamish’s career, serving on Blue ­Funnel’s renowned vessels between 1960-71, encompassed the last great era of British merchant shipping. Having joined as a midshipman, Hamish acquired all the necessary ‘tickets’, eventually gaining his Master’s (Foreign Going) Certificate.

To continue reading the obituary click here.

Published in Ferry

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago