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Displaying items by tag: Irish Ferries minicruises

Irish Ferries cruiseferry Oscar Wilde docked this morning in Rosslare port and her arrival from Roscoff marked the last round trip of this year's high-season operated route, writes Jehan Ashmore.
This does not mean the end of French routes as the cruiseferry continues to maintain year-round sailngs to Cherbourg. The passage time on the Normandy route takes approximately 17 hours 30 minutes and compares favourably to the shorter Breton route that shaved sailing times by only an hour less. The company are currently running mini-cruises and wine hotel shopping breaks to Cherbourg.

The former Scandinavian cruiserferry was built in 1987 to serve on Color Line's Oslo-Kiel route as their Kronprins Harald. In 2007 she was sold to start French sailings and at 31,914grt, she is the largest cruiseferry to operate under Irish Ferries continental routes. Passenger capacity is just shy of 1,500 and cars total 730 in addiition space for around 90 freight vehicles. For a virtual tour of the cruiseferry's on board facilities and exterior deck views click HERE.

Winter sailings will run to the end of the year with a final departure on 30th December outbound and returning from France on 2nd January 2012. Thereafter there will be a no sailings as the cruiseferry is to undergo annual dry-docking before resuming sailings. The first sailing from Ireland is 19th February and the corresponding return sailing from France is 21st February. To keep up-to-date with sailing schedules click HERE.

Published in DBSC

About Quarter Tonners

The Quarter Ton Class is a sailing class of the International Offshore Rule racing the Quarter Ton Cup between 1967 and 1996 and from 2005 until today.

The class is sailed by smaller keelboats of similar size and is likely the world's most-produced keelboat class.

The Ton, Half, Quarter, etc. 'classes' were each given a 'length' and yacht designers had almost free rein to work the hull shapes and measurements to achieve the best speed for that nominal length.

The Ton Rules produced cranky and tender boats without actual downwind speed. Measurement points created weird, almost square hull shapes with longish overhangs.

They were challenging to sail optimally and lost value very quickly as any new wrinkle (e.g. 'bustles') to take advantage of the rule made older boats very quickly uncompetitive.

Although its heyday was 30 years ago, the boat class continues to make its presence felt by holding its own in terms of popularity against some fern race fleets.