#FerryConnection - By coincidence Irish Ferries new French route's ferry Cartour Epsilon shares Dublin Port's main ferry terminal with a rival ferry that also operated on the same route more than a decade ago, writes Jehan Ashmore.
That ferry is Stena Line's ro-pax Stena Nordica, which previously served P&O Ferries as their European Ambassador for two seasons in 2002 and 2003 on the Dublin-Cherbourg route in which Irish Ferries only re-opened in January.
With yesterday's announcement of Stena Line acquiring Celtic Link Ferries operations between Rosslare and Cherbourg, the Normandy port is the common denominator in these French connections to Wexford and the Irish capital. Incidently, prior to Celtic Link operating the route P&O had also ran this link to France.
Stena Nordica currently operates the Dublin-Holyhead route in tandem with Stena Adventurer. During her career with P&O for whom she was built in 2000, the European Ambassador was launched firstly on the Dublin-Liverpool route. The ro-pax was later switched to a second UK route port, by using a then newly constructed Welsh port of Mostyn on the Dee Estuary that shares the border with England.
European Ambassador would operate the Welsh route during the week and at weekends make a round-trip on the French service. On occasions she would make en-route calls to Rosslare. Likewise, Cartour Epsilon, which as previously reported also called to the Wexford port albeit on initial sailings last month for a contract to import trade vehicles.
The use of European Ambassador as single-ship serving two routes is similar to Irish Ferries 'Epsilon' running weekday sailings to Holyhead and at weekends to Cherbourg.
Unlike Stena Line's two-ship serviced Dublin-Holyhead route, Irish Ferries operate three vessels, flagship Ulysses, Epsilon and fast-ferry Jonathan Swift.