Irish Ferries Fleet movements

[ferryfan]

Isle of Innisfree due to depart Dunkirk tomorrow at 0530 destination Dover.

[ferryfan]

Innisfree straight into action first full day of service tomorrow.

[12345teacher]

first commerical crossing uploaded to youtube...by.A2B via Sea, on TV.  isle of innisfree departing dover...       https://youtu.be/CyBLOCKP6BM

[Niall]

It appears the upper tier linkspan at Pembroke Dock is being dismantled

[hhvferry]

It appears the upper tier linkspan at Pembroke Dock is being dismantled

That's interesting, is it permanent or maintenance?

[12345teacher]

mentioned on shipspotting facebook that Just looks like the fingers  are being dismantled but are down and crane is there swapping one of fingers out for refurbishing.

[Irish_Steve]

Been looking at the schedules for later in to 2022, and it seems that Epsilon is out of the schedule after the dry docking loop, and the Dublin Swift is being brought back in to the loop much earlier, to sort of fill the slot that's being left empty by the absence of Epsilon.

Dublin Swift is showing up in the April sailings, doing the same sorts of timings as previous years, 2 return crossings a day, it's going to be interesting to see what the longer term plan is for the Holyhead route, it seems that freight volumes are down, and Covid has been badly affecting the leisure and car traffic, so it could well be the case that there's not the volumes to justify a second larger ship on the route.

That said, I'm surprised to see that the Epsilon is at present operating the Dublin - Cherbourg route, with Ulysses and WB Yeats both operating to Holyhead at the moment, knowing from painful experience what Epsilon is like in rougher seas, I'm surprised that WB Yeats hasn't been put back on to Cherbourg at the moment.

[IFPete]

WB Yeats is covering Christmas period on Dublin - Holyhead and then taking over from Ulysses when she goes to Drydock.

Epsilon does not have enough cabins to work effectively on France route during Covid.

Honfluer would make a more suitable replacement. 

[A83]

Honfleur and WB Yeats working in tandem on the Dublin Cherbourg route would represent a powerful commercial statement and commitment to the Ireland France link.

[Irish_Steve]

Hadn't thought of the Epsilon cabin situation, but that's a valid point.

Does anyone know if the recent dry docking of W B Yeats was a scheduled docking, as it seemed to be a long visit at a strange time of year, on a relatively new vessel, and it seems to have caused a lot of schedule disruption, which made me wonder if there were some issues that could not wait till the after christmas period when they all rotate through docking.

[Niall]

Yes it was a scheduled drydocking for annual refit I beleieve.

[Chef]

Honfleur and WB Yeats working in tandem on the Dublin Cherbourg route would represent a powerful commercial statement and commitment to the Ireland France link.

Honfleur was built to operate on LNG with a pretty unique system of LNG tanks delivered by road transport from an LNG terminal in France and loaded onboard using the ships own gantry crane, if IF  ferries were to operate her they would be very limited  as to what route she could operate on. She was built with only one route in mind for Brittany Ferries Portsmouth/Caen .

[IFPete]

Honfleur can operate with convential fuels too,

This would free up vehicle space on the upper deck.

[Chef]

Yes the engines can operate on conventional fuel but does she have the fuel tanks to do that , any info about her propulsion system seems to be about LNG and nothing else .

[hhvferry]

Do Irish Ferries have the financial muscle any more to acquire an expensive piece of kit like the Honfleur? Better surely to keep a supremely cost effective vessel like the Epsilon in place. Or simply drop the extra roster at Holyhead which would make most sense.