#FerryTT2016 – According to the Isle of Man Steam Packet, the P&O Express fast craft will not be joining the island operators fleet during the 2016 TT Races.

The fastcraft P&O Express has been a regular in Manx waters for Larne trips each TT, but the craft is being returned to her owners by P&O and will not be available for TT charter trips in 2016.

Finding a suitable alternative which is available for such a short lease period is proving very difficult, so the Steam Packet Company has already adjusted its TT schedules for next year to maximise capacity.

Although the loss of P&O Express means there are slightly fewer Irish sailings during TT2016, Ben-my-Chree and Manannan have already been scheduled to operate additional Belfast sailings to accommodate Irish fans heading to the races. Adding these extra Irish services for Manannan and Ben-my-Chree means the number of sailings from Heysham and Liverpool is slightly reduced.

Isle of Man Steam Packet Company Chief Executive Mark Woodward said: 'Fast craft are expensive to operate and maintain so we are not surprised that P&O has decided to return the craft. Realistically, there simply aren't many owners who are prepared to make their vessels available for just two or three weeks charter, and commit to that a year in advance. The search for vessels is further restricted because of the size constraints necessary for vessels which can operate within the limitations of the harbours we service.

'We will keep looking for a replacement charter and have already approached several companies. None at present has indicated a willingness to release vessels to us but we will keep trying. As things stand it appears highly unlikely a suitable replacement will be available and our published schedule for TT2016 assumes we will use our existing resources.'

He added: 'Our vehicle capacity at TT is significantly higher than 20 years ago and Manannan with the mezzanine deck has double the motorcycle capacity of P&O Express, which only carried around 700 of the 14,000 motorcycles transported in 2015.'

#BusyFerries – The Shannon Breeze and Shannon Dolphin operated by the Shannon Ferry Group has already had to extend its high-season crossings due to demand, writes The Examiner

The ferries which can take almost 120 cars between them, run between Tarbert, Co Kerry and Killimer in Clare from 7am to 9.30pm with crossings every 15 minutes.

Eugene Maher, chief executive of Shannon Ferry Group said: "Numbers have been fantastic, particularly over the past two years and this can be attributed to the promotion of the Wild Atlantic Way. "We had lost our focus in terms of promoting the west of Ireland and the Ireland outside of Dublin. As the capital city, Dublin is a dominant player and will continue as that. But the traditional Ireland around the country seemed to have disappeared as regard tourism numbers.

For more on this, the newspaper has the story here.

#DoverCalais – Lloyds Loading List reports that the Eurotunnel Group announced last week that it agreed to sell the main assets of its MyFerryLink maritime business, claiming that "the conditions necessary to develop freely did not exist".

Eurotunnel said it had received a binding offer from DFDS for a "let to buy sale" of two of its three ferries, Rodin and Berlioz. It added that it "regrets" that the SCOP SeaFrance workers co-operative that has operated the vessels since their purchase by Eurotunnel from SeaFrance "has not had the support it needed to be able to present a takeover proposal".

With regard to MyFerryLink's third vessel, Nord Pas de Calais, Eurotunnel said: "In order to maintain its transport operations, Eurotunnel Group will ask the competition authorities to lift the current prohibition and to enable it to be operated in coordination with the Fixed Link."

Eurotunnel said it believed the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) "should not oppose" the completion of the sale of the two ferries, "which will lead to two maritime operators of equal importance".

With this sale, Eurotunnel said it would "ensure that the activity remains in Calais, a situation which was not achieved when the SeaFrance Moliere was sold by its owner, Le Credit Lyonnais, to be operated in the Irish Sea".

Afloat.ie adds that SeaFrance Moliere which spent a stint for DFDS also on the Dover-Calais service was introduced in March as Stena Superfast X on the Dublin Port-Holyhead route.

The newcomer directly replaced Stena Nordica which incidentally serves for DFDS on the premier UK-France short sea service as Malo Seaways.

For more on this ferry industry development, Lloyds Loading List has the full report here.

#FerryTT2015- A special ferry service between Larne-Douglas begins tomorrow (3 June) as the Isle of Man hosts the annual prestigious TT Races which are already underway, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The Isle of Man Steam Packet will operate a fast-ferry service to the island where the TT2015 motorcycle races are set on a 37 mile-plus Mountain Course circuit.

Fast-craft Manannan, will run the 2 hour 45 minute service until 15 June, three days after the TT race programme ends.

During TT2015 the Manannan will also operate on selected dates on the Belfast-Douglas route in addition to those sailings serving the Dublin-Douglas link.

For information and sailings schedule visit the Steam-Packet website here.

#FullFerryService – A full ferry service to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis resumed last week with the reopening to vehicular traffic following work at Ullapool on the north-west of the Scottish mainland.

The resumed car-ferry service on the Outer Hebrides route that began last Monday of the previous week followed a four-week closure.

Work to replace the harbour's link-span in Ullapool was completed so to improve reliability and allow a greater range of vessels to berth on schedule of freight and passenger vehicle services.

CalMac had been running a diverted service from Stornoway via Uig on Skye for the duration of the work.

"I would like to thank all the passengers and hauliers who have been inconvenienced by this temporary diversion. We are delighted that this work has finished on time and we have been able to reinstate normal service again when we said we would," said CalMac''s Operations Director, Drew Collier.

With the upgrade complete CalMac's £41.8m newbuild 'flagship' Loch Seaforth which carried out sea-trials during December on the southern Irish Sea as previously reported on Afloat.ie is operating to a full passenger and freight service on the Ullapool-Stornoway route.

The 700 passenger / 143 car Loch Seaforth was built by Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FGS). The 8,478 tonnes newcomer operates Calmac's most northerly route of the Scottish Western Isles network that has a passage time of 2 hours 30 minutes.

Ullapool Harbourmaster Kevin Peach added: "I'm delighted that we have completed this upgrade on time despite the tight deadline, it will make a huge difference to the resilience of the port. We really appreciate everyone's patience during this unavoidable period of disruption, and many thanks to the project team for their hard work and unstinting commitment throughout."

The improvement work was funded by the Ullapool Harbour Trust and Transport Scotland.

#FerryTruckStop – A new 200-space 'truck stop' facility outside the Port of Holyhead costing £6.5m has now opened for business.

The facility approximately 1 mile from the north Wales port on Anglesey, provides a range of much needed facilities for the transport industry.

The truck stop initiative has been developed by Roadking, a company owned by Bet Fred owner Fred Done, and the Conygar investment company. The opening of the truck stop will come on-stream at a time when the port has recorded yet another year of significant growth.

Freight figures for the port continue to rise and Roadking anticipates that the facility will be used by many of the drivers travelling to and from Ireland (Dublin Port) who use Holyhead as their preferred shortest and fastest crossing port.

Afloat adds that 2015 is the first year that all ferry routes and operators are concentrated on the Holyhead-Dublin route since Stena Line withdraw HSS operated services to Dun Laoghaire Harbour in September last year.

The other operator on the short-sea central corridor route is Irish Ferries which likewise of Stena Line operate to the Irish capital but to neighbouring terminals within Dublin Port.

#DredgingHeysham – The Port of Heysham have assured the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company that tidal and silting issues at the Irish Sea port which has led to several sailings being rescheduled this week, will soon be resolved.

The Lancashire port owned by Peel Ports Group is responsible for maintaining approach channels for all customers (among them Seatruck Ferries), has conducted several weeks of dredging. This has involved the hopper-dredger Albatross to restore the minimum low tide water depth required to access berths.

The port which handles around 30,000 shipping movements annually along its approaches have historically suffered from silting issues. This has required periodic dredging to maintain the minimum depths of water required at low tide for the safe passage of vessels.

Regular soundings are also carried out by the port's owners to check water depths.

Winter storms can sometimes exacerbate the issue as sandbanks shift and local weather conditions can occasionally affect the actual level of low tides compared with predictions.

During the past week, some very low tides coupled with a build-up of silt have led to some Ben-my-Chree services between Douglas and Heysham being rescheduled.

Steam Packet Company Chief Executive Mark Woodward said: 'During most of the year Ben-my-Chree and other vessels can use their standard berth "slots" but, at certain low tide periods, there needs to be a minor timing variation if the water depth is insufficient. Each year the Steam Packet Company and other port customers liaise with Heysham Port on timetables to ensure that changes to "standard" schedules are minimal and pre-planned.

'However, this past winter the port has not been able to maintain the minimum depth of water originally planned and, despite dredging of the approaches and port having been under way for some weeks and soundings constantly being updated, this has resulted in some late schedule changes to accommodate the current situation.'

He added: 'Peel Ports has assured the Company that its dredging will all be completed prior to the busy TT period.'

#FerryBusyCammell – A busy drydocking schedule of ferries calling to Cammell Laird, Birkenhead on the Mersey has seen nearly as many ferries in the first four months of 2015 as in the whole of 2014.

The demand for Cammell Laird has seen 15 ferries docked at its historic 120 acre site, which includes four drydocks, in 2015. A further three ferries are booked in for drydocking and repairs.

Cammell Laird managing director Linton Roberts said the company has undertaken the work for a range of long standing clients including Caledonian MacBrayne, Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, Irish Ferries, NorthLink Ferries, P&O Ferries and Seatruck Ferries.

"It has been a really strong year for ferry drydockings and repairs and we are keen to build on this and win more work from new and existing clients," he said. "The work we have undertaken has made full use of our drydocks which are suitable for vessels up to 40m beam. The drydockings have included conventional and high-speed vessels, in steel or aluminium. They have ranged from the 46m, 617 gross tons Mersey Ferry Snowdrop to the 209m, 50,938 gross tons Irish Ferries Ulysses.

"We have also worked on the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company's Manannan, a 96m high-speed wave piercing catamaran car ferry. Here we have applied a SigmaGlide 1290 silicone coating system in an environmentally-controlled enclosure"

To read much more on the Merseyside shipyard and marine engineering facility click HERE.

Note the above link's second photograph of Seatruck Ferries Dublin-Heysham ro-ro freight-ferry Seatruck Pace which featured on Afloat.ie with an interview of the master of the 'P' class vessel.

#CalMacKintyre – Caledonian MacBrayne's Ardrossan-Campbeltown summer-only service timetabled to have started yesterday has run into technical problems with cancellation of sailings today and tomorrow, writes Jehan Ashmore.

This morning's 07.35 sailing from Campbeltown was cancelled and this also applies to this evenings 18.40 from Ardrossan due to a technical problem with the Isle of Arran (1984/3,296grt).

Further cancellation according to the Scottish operator is for tomorrow's (Saturday 2 May) with the 0700 sailing from Campbeltown on the Mull of Kintyre which has been cancelled for the same technical reason of the ferry. For the most up to date sailing crossing information click HERE.

This is the third season of the summer-only service as previously reported on Afloat.ie which is on a trial pilot-period to assess the 1 hour 40 minutes route's viability served by the 600 passenger / 60 plus vehicle ferry.

When originally launched in Spring 2013, the Ardrossan (Ayrshire)-Campbeltown (Argyll) link was CalMac's first new route for almost two decades. The pilot service is part of a Scottish Government's final Ferries Review that covers ferry operations over a timeframe up to 2022.

The summer service is to reinvigorate tourism in these regions and opening up interesting travel options to explore south-western Scotland.

Only on Saturdays the sailing schedule from the direction of Campeltown to Ardrossan sees the ferry make an en route call to Brodick on the Isle of Arann, dubbed Scotland in miniature.
From this island on the Forth of Clyde is where Calmac also operate a year –round 55 minute service between Brodick and Ardrossan served by the Caledonian Isles.

Due to the May Bank Holiday weekend, Calmac are making temporary sailing capacity arrangements on the route to Arann given the out-of-service Isle of Arann which would also normally partner Caledonian Isles on the Ardrossan-Brodick route.

For further details of a temporary timetable, click HERE.

#PlugInFerry - Within a decade, you could be driving to Dover for the summer getaway in a hybrid car — and when you get there to the continent, you could be boarding a plug-in electric ferry, so writes The Times.co.uk.

According to ABB, the European engineering giant, hybrid electric vessels are coming on stream and plug-in hybrid technology could begin to rule the waves.

Offshore supply ships and deep-sea drilling vessels in the oil and gas industry are already embracing the new technologies, according to Heikki Soljama, the managing director of ABB ports and marine. "There are similarities with the car industry, where in the foreseeable future we do not see.... to find out what more, visit the newspaper's link here.

Afloat adds that notably ferry followers in particular may recognise the profile of the ferry in photo accompanying the Times piece. The ferry in question is SeaFrance Moliere, alas the current Stena Superfast X.

She is seen here in a former guise in the Port of Dover when she served SeaFrance, the French operator that no longer exists, though her fleetmates remain in service for successor MyFerrylink.com.

This Dover-Calais operator is owned by Eurotunnel /SCOP that runs in the highly competitive premier UK-France short sea-service that is also served by P&O Ferries and DFDS Seaways.

The collapse of SeaFrance led to her eventual return to the same route albeit on charter to DFDS Seaways/LD Lines joint venture under the name Dieppe Seaways.

Stena had chartered the ferry to DFDS however this ceased in late 2014. This was followed as her Irish Sea entry as Stena Superfast X last month and directly replacing Stena Nordica. 

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, DFDS are expected to launch the former 'Nordica' as their Malo Seaways on the Strait of Dover route.