#FerryNews - Profits in Irish Continental Group (ICG) almost halved to €29.7 million in the six months ended June 30, the latest figures show.

As The Irish Times reports, ICG whose ferry division Irish Ferries, saw revenue grew slightly to €157.2 million from €156.1 million in the first half of the year.

Profit before tax fell 46 per cent to €29.7 million from €47.5 million during the same period last year.

Earnings per share fell 33 per cent to 15.3 cent in the six months ended June 30 from 22.8 cent in the first half of 2017.

Total equity rose 55 per cent in the period to €240.3 million from €191.3 on June 30 last year.

For more on the financial results, click here. 

#FerryNews - Irish and British unions have called for an urgent meeting with Irish Ferries to discuss pay plans for a new 'super-ferry' due this autumn.

SIPTU, RMT and Nautilus reports the Irish Examiner are seeking assurances over conditions for the crew of the W.B. Yeats, which is expected to join the Dublin-Holyhead route in September.

SIPTU's Jerry Brennan says they want to ensure that new terms and conditions will not undercut existing arrangements on the Irish Sea.

To read a comment by the SIPTU representative, click here.

#FerryNews - Ulysses has returned to service today (Thursday 26 July), having completed a sailing from Dublin Port to Holyhead this morning.

The Irish Ferries flagship left Belfast Dry Dock yesterday evening (Wednesday 25 July) after a month of extended repairs on a problem propeller shaft.

Epsilon, the ferry drafted to replace Ulysses on the current summer schedule, is expected to remain on standby should any further technical issues be encountered.

Afloat.ie's own Jehan Ashmore will be sailing on Ulysses later today.

#FerryNews - Hundreds of holidaymakers who were forced to rearrange their travel plans after Irish Ferries cancelled all sailings of the WB Yeats to France this summer have now been told that their rescheduled crossings have also been cancelled.

As The Irish Times reports, the ferry company has transferred around 80 bookings with the ill-fated WB Yeats onto Epsilon but its scheduled crossing from Ireland to France this weekend has now been cancelled so it can ferry passengers on the Dublin-Holyhead route.

Irish Continental Group, which owns Irish Ferries, confirmed on Monday that repairs on its Ulysses vessel were more serious than originally anticipated and it will be out of service for up to two weeks.

For more on the ferry disruption during the peak-holiday season, click here. 

#FerryNews - Technical issues for Irish Ferries Ulysses remain unresolved as they are more serious than originally anticipated, forcing the operator to cancel further sailings than expected during the peak season on the busy Dublin-Holyhead route.

Ulysses since late last month has been out of service due to problems with a propeller shaft that led to the largest ferry on the Irish Sea to receive repairs in Harland & Wolff, Belfast. The ferry was due to return to service last Wednesday, 4th July. 

According to a statement issued today by Irish Continental Group (parent company of Irish Ferries), the cruiseferry reported technical issues of the starboard controllable pitch propeller on the (Sunday) 24^th June. The investigation and repairs to the vessel were expected to take no longer than 5 days allowing the cruiseferry to resume service on the (Wednesday) 4^th July. Service engineers have informed the operator, that the issue is more serious and the cruiseferry will be out of service for a further period of 1 to 2 weeks. 

Irish Ferries added that despite their best efforts they were unable to find replacement tonnage in what is now the peak tourism season.

This is the first major technical problem to beset the Ulysses since introduction of the 50,938 gross tonnage cruiseferry in 2001. The vessel remains docked in Belfast Dry-Dock from where it entered on the 28th June. Afloat had previously tracked the cruiseferry make an overnight passage from Dublin Port on 26th June to Belfast Lough from where anchorage took place off Bangor before the dry dock could accommodate the 209m cruiseferry.

Irish Ferries said it would be contacting affected passengers and has adjusted the schedules of other vessels to minimise the disruption to customers as much as possible.

The operator said it will continue to run the schedule (Ex: Dublin – 08:05 & 20:55 and Ex: Holyhead – 02:40 & 14:10) using their alternate vessel Epsilon and will increase the number of Dublin Swift sailings with an additional round trip in the evening.

The disruption follows last month's announcement from ICG of another delay to newbuild delivery of cruiseferry W.B. Yeats. The cruiseferry which is similar in appearance to Ulysses but larger at around 55,000 tonnes is now set to enter service this autumn on the Dublin-Holyhead.

Originally, W.B. Yeats was to debut on the continental connection linking the capital and Cherbourg, France followed by a launch on the service to Wales in September.

#FerryNews - Operator Irish Ferries has said all sailings on the Ulysses vessel which serves the Dublin to Holyhead route have been cancelled for the next week.

As the The Irish Times reports, the ferry operator said the ship has been taken out of service due to a “technical issue” and to allow repairs be completed.

A spokeswoman for Irish Ferries said there is a problem with a propeller shaft necessitating the ship going to dry dock for a number of days and it is expected the Ulysses will return to normal service by the middle of next week.

In a statement (for updates click here) the company said all passengers affected are currently being advised and will be accommodated on an alternative ship or sailing.

For more on this story, click here.

Afloat adds the flagship departed Dublin Port this evening and is bound for Harland & Wolff, Belfast to undergo repairs. 

#FerryNews -Irish Ferries last September announced that work had started in a German shipyard on a €144 million ship that would be the pride of its fleet. It said that, in accordance with tradition, a specially commissioned ceremonial coin would be placed in the keel during construction to “bring good luck and calm seas for the vessel”.

As The Irish Times writes, the coin has not done its job.

The “WB Yeats”– as the new boat was named following a public competition that attracted tens of thousands of submissions – has been dogged by bad luck, and its failure to arrive in Ireland on schedule ahead of a busy season of summer crossings has done untold damage to the reputation of Irish Ferries and left the holiday plans of tens of thousands of Irish passengers all at sea.

News that things were going awry with the luxury ferry – which has space for 1,885 passengers and crew, 440 cabins including suites with private balconies, and 3km of car deck space – first reached The Irish Times on April 20th. “There are rumours that Irish Ferries new €144m ship, which is scheduled to take passengers from Dublin to Cherbourg from July, is delayed by a few weeks,” a mail from a reader and would-be passenger started.

“The rumour is they are going to take the existing bookings and tell everyone they are going to be accommodated on the boat from Rosslare instead,” it continued.

To read more on the story click here.

#FerryNews - The National Transport Authority (NTA) which regulates sea travel to and from Ireland has said it is examining whether thousands of passengers impacted by Irish Ferries cancelling its summer sailings on the WB Yeats are entitled to compensation.

As The Irish Times writes, the NTA said it was “extremely disappointed” by the cancellations which will see all crossings from July 30th to September 17th scrapped .

All told approximately 19,000 passengers in addition to 10,000 passengers already affected by a previous wave of cancellations in April have had holiday planes thrown into disarray.

An NTA spokesman said those affected were entitled to full refund or an alternative sailing “at the earliest opportunity, under comparable conditions and at no additional cost”.

He said they may also “be entitled to claim compensation depending on length of delay in arrival at [THE]final destination and depending on the cause of that delay”.

The NTA is the national enforcement body for maritime passenger rights under EU Regulations and the spokesman told The Irish Times that it was “considering in light of this development how [EU RULES ]will apply to ensure that passengers impacted by this announcement receive the protections provided for”.

Passengers have expressed anger at frustration at the difficulties they have encountered in trying to make contact with the company since the cancellations were announced.

To read more on a flood of calls from customers, click here. 

#FerryNews - A bill of up to €7 million faces Irish Ferries for cancelling scheduled French services following delays by a German shipbuilder in finishing a new craft for the company.

The ferry operator writes The Irish Times, was forced to cancel sailings of its new ship, the WB Yeats, from Dublin to France, beginning on July 30th, because its builder, Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft (FSG), had told the Irish firm that the craft would not be ready on time.

Industry analysts at stockbrokers Goodbody and Investec calculated that the cancellations, along with the resulting compensation and rebooking of passengers on alternative services, could cost €4.5 million.

Eamon Rothwell, chief executive of the ferry company’s parent, Irish Continental Group, recently estimated that earlier cancellations, also resulting from FSG’s failure to finish the WB Yeats on schedule, would cost €2.5 million.

As a result, the delay in finishing the WB Yeats leaves the shipping group facing extra costs of €7 million at its busiest time of year.

To read more on this story, click here. 

As previously covered on Afloat the newbuild cruiseferry had originally been scheduled to launch sailings earlier on July 12th, click related report here. 

#FerryNews - Ulysses, Irish Ferries cruiseferry on the Dublin-Holyhead route has sailings cancelled today (2 May) and up to Friday (4 May). 

According to the operator's website this is due to technical reasons. All of the cruiseferry's operated sailings in both directions on the Ireland-Wales route are cancelled. 

Passengers instead can be accommodated on the route's fastferry, HSC Dublin Swift and the ropax ferry Epsilon.

For updated sailing information click the link here and also for contact details.

The 50,938 gross registered tonnes flagship Ulysses is the largest ro-ro ferry operating on the Irish Sea. Since introduction in 2001, the cruiseferry has held a strong reliable track record of service maintaining the core short-sea route. 

The cruiseferry is no longer docked at Dublin Ferryport Terminal 1 having proceeded upriver to berth in Alexandra Basin.