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Displaying items by tag: Not Ready

The UK's second biggest roll-on roll-off ferry port of Holyhead is from where Gwynedd Shipping operate and say they are "absolutely" not ready for a no deal Brexit.

Andrew Kinsella, Managing Director of the shipping company speaking on ITV News, (see: footage) says the infrastructure they need to avoid a backlog of lorries on the A55 is not in place and it is "implausible" that it will be in time.

Stena Line, the company who manage the port in Holyhead claim they "have taken all prudent steps" to prepare for a no deal Brexit.

Welsh Government have also said in the event of a no-deal, there are likely to be delays at customs but contingency plans are in place to minimise disruption.

Boris Johnson has indicated he wants a deal largely in place by October 11, the day the agenda is set for the European summit on October 18 when the Prime Minister is hoping EU leaders will sign off on an agreement.

Michael Gove, the minister in charge of no-deal Brexit preparations (yesterday) announced, "if the EU does not move this Government is prepared to leave without a deal on October 31."

For much more from the ITV News coverage click here. 

Published in Ferry

#ferries - On the UK south-east coast, the Port of Ramsgate "can not be ready" for extra ferry services in the event of a no-deal Brexit, according to the councillor for the harbour area.

Seaborne Freight according to BBC News, has been given a £13.8m contract to run a freight service between Ramsgate and Ostend in the event of a no-deal Brexit.

However, Conservative councillor Beverly Martin says the harbour can not be ready by Brexit on 29 March.

The government said facilities will be open "as soon as practicable".

In a statement the Department for Transport said that "works are underway".

Ramsgate has not had a regular ferry service since 2013.

Seaborne's contract as Afloat previously covered, was one of three awarded to ease "severe congestion" at Dover, in the case of a no-deal Brexit.

The contingency plans allow for almost 4,000 more lorries a week to come and go from other ports, including Plymouth, Poole, and Portsmouth.

In total the contracts are worth £103m.

"From local knowledge, there is terrific concern that we [Ramsgate Port] can not possibly by ready. There isn't the width or the breadth of the berths that is needed to carry large ships," the councillor said.

"I don't see how, with the state of the harbour and the port and the number of repairs that are needed that it could be ready."

For more including the contract to Seaborne, click here. 

Published in Ferry

Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC) is one of Europe's biggest yacht racing clubs. It has almost sixteen hundred elected members. It presents more than 100 perpetual trophies each season some dating back to 1884. It provides weekly racing for upwards of 360 yachts, ranging from ocean-going forty footers to small dinghies for juniors.

Undaunted by austerity and encircling gloom, Dublin Bay Sailing Club (DBSC), supported by an institutional memory of one hundred and twenty-nine years of racing and having survived two world wars, a civil war and not to mention the nineteen-thirties depression, it continues to present its racing programme year after year as a cherished Dublin sporting institution.

The DBSC formula that, over the years, has worked very well for Dun Laoghaire sailors. As ever DBSC start racing at the end of April and finish at the end of September. The current commodore is Eddie Totterdell of the National Yacht Club.

The character of racing remains broadly the same in recent times, with starts and finishes at Club's two committee boats, one of them DBSC's new flagship, the Freebird. The latter will also service dinghy racing on Tuesdays and Saturdays. Having more in the way of creature comfort than the John T. Biggs, it has enabled the dinghy sub-committee to attract a regular team to manage its races, very much as happened in the case of MacLir and more recently with the Spirit of the Irish. The expectation is that this will raise the quality of dinghy race management, which, operating as it did on a class quota system, had tended to suffer from a lack of continuity.