Stena Line’s charter of the Isle of Man Steam Packet’s relief ferry began from Fishguard this afternoon with a sailing for Rosslare, to enable the redeployment of the route’s ropax to the central Irish Sea, writes Jehan Ashmore.
A replacement ferry, the Manx-flagged Ben My Chree, according to Stena, will operate on the Ireland-Wales route starting today and continue running up to 3 May but will be offering a limited range of facilities. There will be no Wi-Fi or cabins available onboard. As for pets, they are allowed to remain in cars or use the pet lounge, but must be pre-booked in advance.
Stena Line, which is the largest ferry operator on the Irish Sea apologised for any inconvenience caused by the operation of the Steam Packet ship, as the St. Georges Channel route’s ropax Stena Nordica this afternoon headed off service bound for Holyhead, North Wales.
(At the time of writing), a development has emerged as Afloat tracked Irish Ferries, W.B. Yeats (covering for the dry-docking of Ulysses) between Dublin and Holyhead, from where the cruise ferry this morning has yet to berth at the Welsh port. The company’s sailing updates stated the following: Irish Ferries regrets to advise that the 13:15 Holyhead to Dublin by W.B.Yeats sailing on 07/01/2026 has now been cancelled due to extraordinary reasons.
According to various media reports, among them BBC News reports, the reason was caused by Stena Estrid having had an incident when berthing this morning. This is the second such incident to occur since December at the port, which continues to operate with one berth instead of two.
Irish Ferries added that passengers can be accommodated on our 19.30 sailing instead, which Afloat adds is also operated by W.B. Yeats. As of 1700 hrs, Afloat tracked W.B. Yeats entering the port following the departure of Stena Estrid, but notably not to Dublin, as it instead went to berth at the nearby cruise jetty, as Stena Nordica is to take its sailing roster tonight at 2215.
As for the southern corridor, this is where Stena’s charter period overlaps the Isle of Man Steam Packet’s opening of a new Larne-Douglas route, scheduled to commence on 1 April, as this was due to be launched by the Ben-My-Chree and operate on a year-round basis.
The new route is primarily targeted at connectivity for passengers but also allows for the development of freight and commercial links between the Isle of Man and Northern Ireland and vice versa. In addition, enhancing the Dublin-Douglas route with the considerably larger capacity ropax otherwise run by the high-speed craft, Manannan.
Afloat consulted the sailing schedule, and instead the Steam Packet has been forced to redeploy Manannan to start the Irish route and also run the flagship Manxman, despite the original plan to free up the roster of these vessels on other core routes that the company operates to England by increasing sailings through Heysham and Liverpool, while also maintaining the established Irish route to Belfast Harbour connecting Douglas.
It will not be until 23 July when the Ben-My-Chree will finally debut on the new Larne-Douglas route and on the next day, calls to Dublin on the seasonal service will also link the Manx capital. Another impact of the chartering to Stena has led to the Manxman not operating to the Irish capital.
The charter period will include the busy St. Patrick’s Week, and the ‘Ben’ will cater for 630 passengers, as does the Stena Nordica, and equally the same total applies to 90 freight trailers. But they differ in terms of cars; the former has 275, and the latter can take 375, where demand is higher on the Dublin-Holyhead route, which it is to serve, permitting Stena Estrid to be dry-docked for planned annual maintenance.
Since Ben-My-Chree's repositioning passage from its homeport of Douglas to the South Wales port yesterday afternoon, it later had to vacate the berth-linkspan to allow scheduled sailings last night by Stena Nordica. This led to the former Manx flagship first sail as far northwards of Bardsey Island off the tip of the Lyn Peninsula as observed by Afloat during an excursion to Pembrokeshire. Likewise as of this afternoon, the 12,747-ton charter ferry went offshore but just off Dinas Head, on the northern shores of Fishguard Bay, before returning to take up its first sailing with the 1400 hrs crossing to Rosslare.
As mentioned, the Stena Nordica takes up its first sailing from Holyhead with the 2215 crossing to Dublin.
This is the second stint that the former Manx flagship Ben-My-Chree has served on the Rosslare-Fishguard route, which took place in November, as part of a space-capacity charter agreement with Irish Ferries, but the period was marginally curtailed due to adverse weather conditions. At that stage, this left an absence of service but also, more concerningly, on the alternative rival route of Irish Ferries, whose also dry-docked stand-in replacement, James Joyce, was also forced to cancel sailings due to weather, resulting in major disruption on the southern corridor route for three days.
