#FERRY NEWS -Seatruck Ferries newbuild freight-only ferry, Seatruck Progress carried out berthing trials in Dublin Port yesterday in preparation to her debut on the Liverpool route over the festive period, writes Jehan Ashmore.

This was the inaugural call to the capital, though she had sailed across Dublin Bay earlier this month (as previously reported - click HERE) during her delivery voyage to Liverpool from German shipbuilders FGS Flensburger.

At 142 metres long and with a beam of 24 metres, the four decked ro-ro vessel, offers more capacity to the routes existing pair of 'Point' class vessels, as she can handle an extra 35 trailer units (each of 13.5m) than the Clipper Point and Clipper Pennant.

In February, the newcomer's second sister out of four on order, Seatruck Power is set to join her on the central corridor route.

Seatruck are the only Irish Sea operator dedicated to the carriage of un-accompanied freight traffic, though the vessels can cater for driver accompanied units with a limited number of cabins.

Seatruck Ferries is to re-open the Dublin-Heysham route following the closure by DFDS Seaways of the freight-only service last month, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The first sailing of the revived route is scheduled to depart Heysham next Monday at 02.00hrs and the corresponding departure from Dublin is at 14.00hrs. Seatruck have yet to release the identity of the one-ship operated service, previously run by DFDS Anglia Seaways.

Seatruck decided to re-open the route based on strong demand and of the firm commitment to support the service from several road haulage firms.

To facilitate the additional business of the new route, Seatruck's existing use of Terminal 3 for its Dublin-Liverpool service will no longer be required. Instead all operations will be centred at Terminal 5, previously used by DFDS Seaways for their freight and passenger ferry vessels on the Heysham and Liverpool (Birkenhead) routes.

The company which is part of the Bahamas based Clipper Group Ltd (which controls 250 vessels) also operate between Warrenpoint-Heysham and Larne-Heysham. Seatruck operate an eight–strong Irish Sea fleet, which include four new vessels that were built in Spain and introduced onto two of their routes since 2008.

Lead-ship of the four 120-trailer capacity vessels, Clipper Point was followed by Clipper Panorama on the Warrenpoint route. The Clipper Pace and the final unit of the quartet, Clipper Pennant, serve on the Liverpool route. The new Dublin-Heysham route will increase the total number of all Seatruck route sailings to 80 each week.