As Afloat reported earlier, Stena Line, owner of Holyhead Port, has partially reopened today after more than a month of unprecedented disruption that led efforts to alleviate passenger and freight traffic across the Irish Sea, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Motorist passengers were for the first time carried on the Dublin-Birkenhead (Liverpool) route, and the company established a new temporary Dublin-Fishguard route. This required redeploying the two Holyhead ferries; Stena Estrid was rerouted on the Merseyside link, joining the chartered freight ferry Bore Song on the longer central Irish Sea route with England.
As for the Stena Adventurer, the second and larger ferry notably took up service on the Dublin-Fishguard link to South Wales, providing capacity given diverted traffic from Anglesey. The route ended yesterday, a day earlier than planned, as the final sailing from Pembrokeshire was completed in Dublin mid-afternoon. This permitted the ‘Adventurer’ to finally resume service last night on a sailing to Holyhead with an arrival in the early hours today to the North Wales port, where Stena Estrid also returned to service.
Together they currently share the terminal's only operational berth (No. 5) with Irish Ferries, which Afloat will have more to report with overall fleet movements.
‘Ben’s Charter Ceases
To tackle trade traffic congestion arising from Holyhead’s closure, as also part of measures to maintain Ireland-UK freight links, Stena chartered the Isle of Man Steam Packet’s 'reserve' ropax Ben-My-Chree to operate exclusively for hauliers on a new temporary Dublin-Heysham route.
Initially this was to be a short-term 'charter' (as Afloat originally speculated), which was to run up to the festive period; however, the Steam Packet’s second relief (freight-only) vessel, Arrow, was taken out of winter layover in Larne. This saw the ship sailing Douglas-Heysham into the New Year in tandem with the passenger flagship ferry Manxman, the successor of the Ben-My-Chree.
The call-up of the Arrow allowed the Ben-My-Chree to continue its role with an extended charter into the New Year on the Ireland-England link, with daily sailings taking place. However, with today's reopening of Holyhead, the Ben-My-Chree carried out its final sailing yesterday evening to Dublin, which concluded the charter between the capital and Lancashire port.
On completion of unloading freight, the ‘Ben’ made a departure last night from the capital to return to its registered homeport of Douglas with an arrival tracked this morning.
