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Displaying items by tag: Dover disruption

Afloat tracked Irish Ferries high-speed craft (HSC) Dublin Swift to Holyhead on Friday, having departed last month from Belfast Harbour on the repositioning voyage to north Wales, writes Jehan Ashmore.

The HSC which had been at Harland & Wolff for annual dry-docking, completed the Irish Sea passage in four hours, in preparation for this year’s return to seasonal service on the Dublin-Holyhead route

Dublin Swift as previously reported, is set to sail from its namesake port this Friday, 10 March, one week prior to the busy St. Patrick’s Day bank holiday weekend with capacity available for 900 passengers and 200 cars. 

The high-speed sailings which also handle 16 lorries, takes just over 2 hours on the Ireland-Wales route. Whereas conventional cruiseferry crossings by Ulysses and by the more freight oriented (ropax) vessel Epsilon take 3 hours 15 minutes.

Dover-Calais disruption

Also on Friday is when an engine-room fire on board Isle of Innisfree took place and was contained with no injury to crew nor passengers having disembarked safely at Calais.

The incident however led to cancelled sailings which currently remains in place on the Irish Ferries UK ‘landbridge’ service on the Dover-Calais route.

Other sailings, however are been maintained, albeit by just one ferry, the Isle of Inishmore, though the 'Innisfree' is set to return to service on Wednesday, 8 March. 

This reduction in sailing frequency has also been compounded as a third route ferry, Isle of Inisheer is also off-service due to dry-docking  at Harland & Wolff, Belfast.

Afloat also notes that according to the operator's sailing updates, the 'Inisheer' is listed for sailings on Thursday, 9 March, however on that day, the company regrets that all sailings have been cancelled due to technical reasons. Customers will however be accommodated on other sailings. 

Sailings take 1 hour 30 minutes on the service which Irish Ferries began in July, 2021.

For the latest sailing updates on the Strait of Dover route, along with Ireland-Wales routes and connecting Ireland-France, they can be consulted here.

In addition to the link above is a 24hr pre-recorded telephone information service.

Published in Irish Ferries

Esailing & Virtual Sailing information

The concept of e-sailing, or virtual sailing, is based on a computer game sailing challenge that has been around for more than a decade.

The research and development of software over this time means its popularity has taken off to the extent that it has now become a part of the sailing seascape and now allows people to take an 'active part' in some of the most famous regattas across the world such as the Vendée Globe, Route du Rhum, Sydney Hobart, Volvo Ocean Race, America’s Cup and some Olympic venues too, all from the comfort of their armchair.

The most popular model is the 'eSailing World Championship'. It is an annual esports competition, first held in 2018 and officially recognised by World Sailing, the sports governing body.

The eSailing World Championship is a yearly competition for virtual sailors competing on the Virtual Regatta Inshore game.

The contract to run the event was given to a private company, Virtual Regatta that had amassed tens of thousands of sailors playing offshore sailing routing game following major offshore races in real-time.

In April 2020, the company says on its website that it has 35,000 active players and 500,000 regattas sailed.

Virtual Regatta started in 2010 as a small team of passionate designers, engineers, and entrepreneurs gathered around the idea that virtual sailing sports games can mix with real races and real skippers.