Stena Line has cancelled sailings today, among them its ‘freight’ service on the Dublin-Birkenhead (Liverpool) route due to the continuing adverse weather conditions on the Irish Sea, writes Jehan Ashmore.
This morning saw the arrival from Birkenhead of the route’s chartered ro-ro freight ferry Bore Song, which rarely entered Dublin Bay via the South Burford rather than off Howth Peninsula. As above is the vessel offshore of Dalkey.
Bore Song took anchorage off Dun Laoghaire Harbour, and its sailing schedule on the Ireland-England route has been badly affected, as the freighter was scheduled to depart Dublin Port in the early hours of today at 0530 hrs with an arrival at Birkenhead at 1300 hrs.
Likewise, Bore Song's corresponding sailing from Merseyside this afternoon at 1700 hrs has also been cancelled, and so there will be no early morning arrival back to Dublin at 0100 hrs. The freight ferry is now scheduled to enter the capital during lunch hour and, according to the Stena Line timetable, is to resume with the next scheduled sailing departing tomorrow at 0530 hrs.
Sailings have also been cancelled, notably on the Rosslare-Fishguard route yesterday and this morning from the Wexford port; however, the next sailing is from Wales with the scheduled 1400 hrs departure and an arrival at the Irish port at 17.30hrs.
According to Met.ie, there will be southwest winds reaching gale force 8 on the Irish Sea at times today and tonight.
Bore Song made its debut on the central Irish Sea corridor route, which Stena Line opened just two months after P&O Ferries closed their service in December 2023, noting this operator used Liverpool Docks.
The route was initially operated by the ropax’s Stena Nordica and Stena Horizon, which headed earlier this year to Scandinavia, serving Stena between Travemunde in Germany and Liepaja, Latvia, one of the trio of the Baltic States.
With the entry of the Bore Song, the single-ship operated route was boosted by 30% in freight capacity (3,000 lane meters) on the 8-hour crossing. The freight ferry is owned by Finnish operator Bore Line with a head office in Helsinki and Mariehamn, another capital (of the Åland Islands) in the Baltic Sea and where the 2001-built ship has its port of registry.
As for the Swedish company, it also operates the dedicated freight routes of Belfast-Birkenhead and Belfast-Heysham, where the first of the twin Stena 2800 NewMax ro-ro’s, Stena Futura, entered service last month, and the second new freight ferry, Stena Connecta, is to join from January 2026. Each new ship will boost capacity by 40% on the service.
When Stena Connecta makes its debut, both of the existing Belfast-Heysham serving twins, Stena Hibernia and Stena Scotia, will transfer from the north Irish Sea route to the Dublin-Birkenhead link. This development will also significantly boost capacity.
