Swansea-Cork ferry service closed!

netwhizkid

It says it here the old ferry was nasty but it sure cut a lot of driving off the Munster to UK run particularly if you were going to London or the south or east of England.

I only used it once and found it fine not too expensive if the boat was tatty. Still better than doing extra driving when it was the first time navigating Britain. An excellent example of where the state should intervene to run this essential service between our two Islands. Damn handy it was for those importing Cars from Britain too.

Chris_533976

Thats sad Was very useful to get a car to all of England. Swansea is right on the M4 so it was quick to get to the whole country..... better than Rosslare - Fishguard (No rosslare drive and no drive through the hills in Wales) and better than Dublin - Holyhead (no Dublin trip).

Tis a pity Part of my youth this Ferry was... could see it from my bedroom window

Alun

Chris_533976 wrote:

Thats sad Was very useful to get a car to all of England. Swansea is right on the M4 so it was quick to get to the whole country.....

Depends on where you're going ... for the north of England or the Midlands (or even North Wales!) Holyhead is more convenient. If you really insist on going to London and the south-east though, it isn't ideal, granted.

wingnut

No great loss. It was quicker and cheaper to drive to Cork - Rosslare Fishguard - Swansea than to get that ferry. It took c. 11 hours! It only takes 1.5 hours to drive Fishguard to Rosslare, less fuss if you ask me. I am living in Swansea now - my girlfriend got that Ferry once and that was enough. Took her 20 hours to get home because they missed the tide. Been over and back on the Stena to Rosslare tons of times and that never happened.

D'Peoples Voice

netwhizkid wrote:

It says it here the old ferry was nasty but it sure cut a lot of driving off the Munster to UK run particularly if you were going to London or the south or east of England.

I only used it once and found it fine not too expensive if the boat was tatty. Still better than doing extra driving when it was the first time navigating Britain. An excellent example of where the state should intervene to run this essential service between our two Islands. Damn handy it was for those importing Cars from Britain too.

excellent post, very tongue in cheek, especially adding in your signature like that makes is so ironic,
here is a service that clearly did not have sufficient demand for the company to undertake expansion plans or improved services, yet you want the government to intervene, I'm guessing in the form of grant aid (legal under EU law?), and then you call the Government money wasters.
Are you encouragihg them to waste yet more of our money?

The Government should say, it's a matter for private industry, if the demand is there, another company will meet that demand, if there is no demand, then there is no issue. Simple as that.

Victor

wingnut wrote:

It only takes 1.5 hours to drive Fishguard to Rosslare

Your own personal Seacat?

lostinsuperfunk

a service that clearly did not have sufficient demand for the company to undertake expansion plans

Read the article, they claim it didn't close due to insufficient demand, it closed because the deal to buy a new ferry fell through due to the seller being unable to meet the sale conditions, and there wasn't enough time to charter a replacement for the 2007 season.

SCF did get some support (loans?) from local governments in Ireland and Wales in the early days, but it seems to have been running as a viable business. The company is solvent, all accounts will be settled and they are planning to reintroduce a service in 2008.

D'Peoples Voice

lostinsuperfunk wrote:

Read the article, they claim it didn't close due to insufficient demand, it closed because the deal to buy a new ferry fell through due to the seller being unable to meet the sale conditions, and there wasn't enough time to charter a replacement for the 2007 season.

I know why it suspended it's services, my point was that if it was doing great business, such a scenario would never happen, it would have a contingency plan.
If I was to make a guess, and that's all it is, I would say that perhaps this gives them an opportunity to offload their existing staff and next year replace them with cheaper Eastern European staff, without causing as much fuss as Irish Ferries.
I'm aware there is massive growth in the demand for shipping across the world, not necessarily ferries but all types of ships, old single hull oil tankers having to be replaced by double hull tankers, china's insatiable demand for ships to deliver steel and other heavy machinery to it's shores, and growth in demand for cruise holidays.
All I'm saying is that something is wrong when their existing ship was in tatters as someone posted above, and the company didn't seem to have a contingency plan in relation to replacing the old boat. I'm sure there is a contingency plan, I just haven't heard it yet!

netwhizkid

D'Peoples Voice wrote:

If I was to make a guess, and that's all it is, I would say that perhaps this gives them an opportunity to offload their existing staff and next year replace them with cheaper Eastern European staff, without causing as much fuss as Irish Ferries.

The majority of their staff were eastern European anyway plus a few greeks thrown into the mix. When I sailed last summer the only Irish I encountered were other passengers and the only natives of the two islands were the People doing security at Swansea port and those taking the booking email in the little hut and letting you drive once it checked out.

The security was the British Transportation Police and their own Private Security, I was singled out as I was Irish bringing in a UK car, and had to provide all my details such as the garage receipt, and the portion of the log-book I brought back! (which incidentally I made a sh!t of and had to get a certificate of Permanent Export after which delayed clearing the Car here for 2 months). The Gardai were doing similar checks in Ringaskiddy on the Cork side too.