After four months of being stranded in Belfast Harbour, a residential cruise ship finally departed Belfast Lough yesterday on its inaugural continual round the world cruise.
With 125 passenger residents on board, the Villa Vie Residences' Odyssey, had been refurbished in the city’s Harland & Wolff shipyard, which should have departed in May but was delayed as it also needed repairs.
Passengers of the 650 capacity Odyssey have remained in good spirits despite the delays to the 24,344 gross ton ship, which are estimated to have cost the US based company millions of pounds.
The delay to the 195m Odyssey, according to Villa Vie Residences’chief executive Mikael Petterson, said the hold-up to the three and a half year world cruise had been related to administrative paperwork.
Having departed the shipyard on Queen’s Island, passengers boarded the 24,344 gross ton cruise ship, which berthed downriver at Belfast Cruise Terminal on Monday night, expecting it to be their departure from the city.
The 1993 built residential cruise ship did leave Belfast Harbour just after 23:30 and anchor just before 01:00 but remained in the lough off Bangor, Co. Down, for almost three more days. On Thursday, at about 16:30, the Odyssey said farewell to the lough.
It was initially thought the Odyssey may require a passage across the North Channel so to refuel in Scotland, however, the ship is believed to be on its way to Brest in France.
More from the BBC News on the story and residents of the company, which states on their website that the cost of buying a cabin can range from $99,999 to $899,000 (£75,000-£685,000).
Last night Afloat tracked Odyssey some 15 nautical miles off Kearney on the Ards Peninsula when underway in the Irish Sea at a speed of 14.7 knots. According to the AIS, the next port of destination was Brest, Brittany, with an estimated arrival time today, 4 October at 2200hrs.
Overnight the Odyssey sailed through the St. Georges Channel, where the ship, as the former Braemar of Fred Olsen Cruise Lines, became the first cruise ship to visit Rosslare Europort in 20 years when it called in 2016.
The Braemar’s call to Co. Wexford ferryport was part of an 11-day “Closer to the UK and Ireland” cruise that began in Southampton. It was from the south of England port that Odyssey was originally to have departed on its perpetual world cruise, but because of problems in Belfast, the embarkation port was changed to the city.
This morning Odyssey is in the Celtic Sea on its first leg of the world cruise.
