A Stena Line Ireland-France route ferry was observed in Dublin Bay while operating between the capital and Holyhead, has led to one of the routes two ferries leave the Irish Sea route for a week, writes Jehan Ashmore.
On Tuesday afternoon, the Rosslare-Cherbourg route ropax Stena Horizon was seen departing Dublin Port when bound for Holyhead, having then already made three sailings on the route.
The redeployment of the ropax from Rosslare allowed for the release of Stena Estrid from Holyhead to head northward to cover Belfast-Cairnryan sailings while the north Wales route’s second ferry Stena Adventurer kept to its own sailing roster.
Afloat tracked the E-Flexer leadship Stena Estrid at Belfast Harbour’s VT4 Terminal which is where ferries operate to Scotland whereas the VT2 caters for traffic bound for Birkenhead (Liverpool).
As for the reason for both ferries moving routes, this led Afloat to consult Stena’s freight website sailing scheduled where only one of the two North Channel ferries, Stena Superfast VII was not operating on the route from yesterday, 6th September but was scheduled to return to service several days later.
Afloat sought a statement from Stena Line which said “Due to necessary repair work on Stena Superfast VII, Stena Line has been required to make a small number of temporary fleet changes and redeployments on its Irish Sea services for the week 4-9 September. Stena Line expects to return to its normal vessel sailing schedule by the early part of next week and would like to apologise to customers for any inconvenience caused during this period.”
In the meantime, the Belfast-Cairnryan route is also been operated by the twin of the affected ferry, Stena Superfast VIII which together have served the North Channel route since introduction in 2011.
While at Rosslare despite the absence of Stena Horizon on the France route, the cruiseferry Stena Vision which made its debut in June offers considerably more passenger capacity than the ropax.
The above photo of the ropax Stena Horizon at Cherbourg took place in mid-May when for around a week the ferry had broken down and was undergoing repairs at a layover berth at the French port. At that stage, the route was a single-ship operated service and so passengers were transferred to alternative travel arrangements.
