Stena Line is once again to charter the Isle of Man Steam Packet’s reserve ropax ferry to cover the Rosslare-Fishguard route from Wednesday, writes Jehan Ashmore.
The Steam Packet’s former flagship Ben-My-Chree has been at its homeport of Douglas since a stint on the Ireland-Wales route during November. The 12,747-ton ferry is soon to make a repositioning passage to Fishguard.
On this occasion, the charter is not part of the pre-Christmas period of a temporary space-capacity charter agreement with Irish Ferries, whose own ferries this month are involved in reshuffling due to dry-dockings as outlined below.
Ben-My-Chree is to take up the 1400 sailing from the Pembrokeshire port on the 3-hour 30-minute service. This will release the St. Georges Channel route's ropax Stena Nordica which is to head to Anglesey to facilitate standing in for the planned dry-docking of Stena Estrid.
The ‘Ben’ handles 630 passengers, 275 cars, and 90 freight trailer units, or 'drops,' whereby the unaccompanied traffic does not involve freight drivers, as Afloat previously highlighted.
On the same day, Stena Nordica is to take over the roster of the first of the Stena E-Flexer class cruise-ferries on the central Irish Sea corridor route with the 2200 sailing bound for Dublin Port.
Meanwhile, Stena Line’s rivals on the Ireland-Wales route, Irish Ferries, are also carrying out changes at this quiet time of the year with a fleet reshuffle to enable scheduled dry-dockings. As of today, the mainstay of the Dublin-Holyhead route, the 2001-built Ulysses, now in its 25th year, is this afternoon to enter Harland & Wolff, Belfast, owned by Navantia UK, a subsidiary of a Spanish state naval shipbuilding group.
Its replacement is W.B. Yeats from the Dublin-Cherbourg route, where crossings on the continental connection are covered by the ropax Isle of Inisheer, which has been the Ireland-France route’s secondary ferry since its introduction last year, initially serving between the Irish capital and Anglesey.
In the above photo from a year ago, Ben-My-Chree during its first charter to Stena Line when the operator established a temporary Dublin-Heysham ‘freight’ route whilst Holyhead was closed due to Storm Darragh. As mentioned, a Dublin-Fishguard route was also launched, and from the capital, the Liverpool freight service was opened to passenger motorists to alleviate and divert traffic away from the affected North Wales port.
