Gale Force Weather Severely Delays Dublin to Holyhead Ferries With Arrivals Over 19 Hours Late

15th November 2025

Jehan Ashmore

Gales of force 8-9 associated with Storm Claudia have affected ferries from Dublin Port yesterday morning (14 Nov.). The ferries Stena Adventurer and Ulysses (as above earlier this year at Holyhead) were finally able to berth at the North Wales port but only this morning, as strong northeasterly winds forced them to shelter off Anglesey overnight. The major disruption caused an overnight ordeal for passengers, as the ferries finally arrived, albeit late, between 17 and more than 19 hours. Services on the corresponding crossings, albeit delayed, are to resume this morni Credit: Jehan Ashmore

Two ferries that departed Dublin Port yesterday morning (14 Nov.) were unable to berth at Holyhead due to strong gale force conditions of 8 to 9 but have finally arrived at the Welsh port this morning, writes Jehan Ashmore.

As Afloat previously reported, adverse weather conditions affected the ferries, including Irish Ferries Ulysses, which was scheduled to arrive at Holyhead at 11:30 yesterday; however, it was prevented from entering the port, leading to circling off Anglesey overnight before it could successfully berth at the North Wales port just before 07:00, a delay of 19 hours and 30 minutes.

Irish Ferries advised passengers in an update (at the time of Afloat’s coverage) that this morning’s 08:16 sailing from Holyhead to Dublin by Ulysses is running on schedule but highlighted to be aware that this is the delayed 14:10 sailing from yesterday.

As for rival Stena Line, it too bore the brunt of the Irish Sea battering, as it affected the Stena Adventurer, which also departed the Irish capital yesterday morning with a scheduled arrival for 1345; the ferry took shelter southwest of Anglesey. The cruise ferry finally arrived at its homeport to berth just before 06:00. In a Stena Line sailing update (at the time of writing), it advised that the 04:00 hrs sailing is currently delayed due to adverse weather and that the berth is closed, with updates to follow.

Both ferries berthed at Holyhead's two-berth integrated jetty terminal, where almost a year ago ferry incidents took place, damaging the port infrastructure just before the peak of Storm Darragh, which led to a temporary closure in the run-up to Christmas, causing widespread disruption to passengers and freight. The port was closed for five weeks before it was partially reopened, until both terminals reopened in the summer.

Fortunately on this occasion, Irish Ferries' second ship on the Ireland-Wales route, James Joyce, which had sailings canceled yesterday, resumed service this morning with a crossing to Holyhead.

In addition, Stena Line, which also has another ferry, albeit the relief Stena Nordica, arrived at Dublin this morning to get back to its scheduled roster with the scheduled 1000 sailing; however, due to the adverse weather, this crossing is currently delayed by approximately 5 hours.

While Ulysses and Stena Adventurer were unable to enter Holyhead yesterday, this also applied to Stena Nordica, which is a smaller ship of a ropax design that was forced to divert to Fishguard in South Wales, as Afloat highlighted. The ropax departed Dublin in the early hours of yesterday (14 Nov.) and was scheduled to arrive at 0800 but instead sailed south to the Pembrokeshire port, where it arrived some six hours late, where the rerouting caused inconvenience to passengers and freight.

Due to the re-routing by Stena Nordica to Fishguard, the chartered Manx ferry Ben-My-Chree on the Rosslare route had to vacate the berth and anchor offshore to allow the ferry to berth and passengers and freight to disembark.

On completion of unloading duties, Stena Nordica sailed light on a repositioning passage from Fishguard overnight to Dublin. The sailing echoed the 'temporary' route that Stena opened as a contingency measure to relieve traffic congestion at Holyhead during last December’s closure of the North Wales port, which would partially reopen before it finally resumed full operations some seven months later.

Afloat notes that the two-berth linkspan between Terminal 5 and Terminal 3 at Holyhead used by Irish Ferries and Stena Line this morning followed a period of further planned maintenance involving T3, where the ferry incidents took place last December, damaging port infrastructure. During the maintenance period of eight weeks, from early September until 2 November, ferries were back sharing T5, like last year, and were run on a revised sailing timetable.

Since then Irish Ferries and Stena Line have entered into a temporary space charter agreement that enables passengers and freight to easily transfer onto both companies’ routes while ferries go off service for routine annual dry-docking maintenance periods.

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Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals.

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