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#DublinDebut – Cruise & Maritime Voyages newest flagship Columbus departed Dublin Port late last night and was followed by the arrival of predecessor Magellan in the early hours of this morning, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The maiden call of Columbus to the capital was part of 12-nights ‘Grand British Isles Discovery Cruise’ which continues with a visit today to the Isles of Scilly. The 63,000 gross tonnage flagship however made a first ever cruise earlier this month of a 3-nights ‘Amsterdam & Antwerp Break’.

This North Sea mini-cruise followed the Columbus christening ceremony by TV celebrity Angela Rippon at Tilbury, London Cruise Terminal. This is where the 1,400 passenger flagship will be based year-round from her new UK homeport following a previous career with P&O Cruises in Australia.

Across the UK last year, nearly 1.9 million people took a cruise and now with the arrival of Columbus the market is set to grow even further.

Speaking at the flagships’ naming ceremony in Tilbury, Chris Coates, Commercial Director at CMV said “When we introduced Magellan to our fleet just over two years ago, I suggested that it would be a game changer for us. Indeed it has been, and now we begin a new chapter as we proudly introduce our new flagship, Columbus, enabling us to respond to growing customer demand for traditional style cruising on board mid-sized cruise ships. The arrival of Columbus means we are on course to carry 100,000 passengers in 2018 cruising from the UK, which is 10% of the market.”

Magellan’s return call to Dublin, cannot simply be ignored given the completion of two of five sold-out ‘home-ported’ cruises that embark Irish passengers directly in the capital. These cruises were a 9 nights ‘Fjordland Splendour’ and 12 nights ‘Fjords and Iceland.

This evening a new cruise departs Dublin, this time it’s an 11-night ‘Spain, Portugal and France Cruise’.

Due to the success of these cruises, CMV are to repeat the Dublin home-porting in 2018 but with an additional 11 cruises departing and returning to the capital.

Published in Cruise Liners

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.