A Stena Line freight ferry made the short hop across the Mersey from Cammell Laird shipyard, Birkenhead, where it was dry-docked, to Liverpool Docks today in advance of making its debut linking Dublin, writes Jehan Ashmore.
When the Stena Hibernia departed the Wirral shipyards’ Tranmere Wet Basin, the soon-to-be second ship on the link passed the chartered fleetmate Bore Song whilst berthed at the Twelve Quays Terminal at Birkenhead. It seems the passage time upriver to Liverpool, according to AIS, took a mere 20 minutes to complete, including a transit of the lock gate into the port’s dock system to dock at Gladstone Branch Dock No. 2.
Previously Afloat reported that the Stena Hibernia would embark on its maiden sailing at the weekend based on Dublin Port arrival times; however, it seems that the inaugural sailing was at 0430 today but was cancelled given the adverse weather caused by Storm Bram. However, the 210 freight trailer capacity Bore Song, did depart on schedule with this afternoon’s 1700 crossing with the former Baltic Sea ro-ro freighter bound for the Irish capital with west to southwest winds, which will reach gale force 8 or 9 at times.
Notably, the Bore Song: instead of a scheduled arrival for 0100 tomorrow morning, the stern-only loading freighter is now not expected to enter Dublin until the afternoon at 1445. This will potentially cause a considerable delay of almost 14 hours, though the port of Dublin has the freighter arriving slightly earlier at 1345. Either way, its late arrival will cause an impact on freight deliveries and the sailing schedule on the route Stena opened almost two years following the closure of P&O's long-established link, albeit from Liverpool.
(In an update, 10 Dec) Due to this morning's expected arrival at 1000 of CLdN's ro-ro Power from Heysham, the freight ferry will unload and load freight trailers at Berth 52, which is to be completed before departing at 1330. The berth is to be used by Bore Song, the freighter is now scheduled to arrive considerably late at 1345. Effectively, the freight ferry made a leisurely sailing to Dublin, albeit initially in heavy seas. Likewise, it will unload and load before retaining its scheduled departure, but not until returning to Merseyside at 1915 tonight.
Despite the change of weather, which will gradually dissipate overnight, Stena Hibernia is still to remain on Merseyside, as, according to Stena Line Freight, its next scheduled sailing, tomorrow at 0631, is also cancelled. Further cancellations are to remain the case for the rest of the week so far, up to Saturday, but perhaps this is just provisional.
Stena Hibernia’s transfer forms part of Stena’s extensive strategic review to focus resources on its six Irish Sea routes between Ireland and Britain, two of which are freight, the other being Belfast-Heysham, where the first of the twin new tonnage newbuilds, Stena Futura, was recently named.
The Stena NewMax 2800 hybrid-powered freighter directly replaced the nearly 30-year-old Hibernia on the north Irish Sea route to the Dublin-Birkenhead link, where the twin Stena Scotia, with 114 trailer units, will also be replaced by the second newbuild Stena Connecta, next year.
