New Cork Swansea Ferry

beer enigma

Saw it coming into Cork this morning - looks a pretty big ship !

who the fug

I think this be her

DannyBuoy

And here she is now!

Dankoozy

ROADDDD TRIPPPP!!!!!!!!

dahamsta

Clever of them to bring it to the city first. They're a canny lot.

Saruman

Great and all as this is (and I'm not putting it down), would it not be quicker to drive to Dublin and get the ferry from there?

Dankoozy

Saruman wrote: »

Great and all as this is (and I'm not putting it down), would it not be quicker to drive to Dublin and get the ferry from there?

depends on where in england you are going i'd say

eden_my_ass

Saruman wrote: »

Great and all as this is (and I'm not putting it down), would it not be quicker to drive to Dublin and get the ferry from there?

Or we could just close down the rest of Ireland and all move to Dublin. The point has been made that such a service would never have vanished from inside the pale like it did here in Cork. It was essential to business and tourism here as proven by the huge support that must have been necessary to get things back to where they are now. Most tourists looking to visit the Cork/Kerry region are not interested in getting stuck in Dublin traffic and a drive down the country to get where they wanted to be in the first place. Its hard to measure the attraction of getting on a ferry and doing nothing more while someone else does the travelling for you!

beer enigma

Saruman wrote: »

Great and all as this is (and I'm not putting it down), would it not be quicker to drive to Dublin and get the ferry from there?

Quicker as the Cork/Swansea is 10 hrs overnight, but depending on where you are heading for, maybe easier.

I drove to Cornwall this year & had 2 1/2 hrs to Rosslare, then on the boat & then its another 2 hrs before you get to Swansea. With 3 kids in the back of the car asking 'are we there yet' before we'd reached the Jack Lynch - this ferry is a godsend !

beer enigma

eden_my_ass wrote: »

Or we could just close down the rest of Ireland and all move to Dublin. The point has been made that such a service would never have vanished from inside the pale like it did here in Cork. It was essential to business and tourism here as proved by the huge support that must have been necessary to get things back to where they are now. Most tourists looking to visit the Cork/Kerry region are not interested in getting stuck in Dublin traffic and a drive down the country to get where they wanted to be in the first place. Its hard to measure the attraction of getting on a ferry and doing nothing more while someone else does the travelling for you!

+1 - A lot of the businesses down in West Cork feel they've suffered hugely because of the loss of the service...now if we could only persuade the DAA to let Ryanair have the old terminal in Cork, we might make some headway :pac:

Bill-e

++1

deRanged

I popped down for a look earlier:

bladebrew

they were even saying bringing this ferry service back into operation will increase house sales of properties in west cork! due to its popularity with english folk,

Dankoozy

bladebrew wrote: »

they were even saying bringing this ferry service back into operation will increase house sales of properties in west cork! due to its popularity with english folk,

english folk have no money either, maybe after the recession

but is it really worth having more obnoxious brits who want to think they are 'jenny from the countryside' around the place?

miss_shadow

Dankoozy wrote: »

english folk have no money either, maybe after the recession

but is it really worth having more obnoxious brits who want to think they are 'jenny from the countryside' around the place?

i wonder what you turn into when you go to the u.k

adrianglass

HI Folks
More details & photos on the websites
www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com
and
www.fastnetline.com

She's certainly a big ship - and she'll be berthed at Horgan's Quay in Cork for a little while - so call by and take a look for yourself!

Adrian

Dankoozy

how many horsepowers,engines,cylinders,propellers?

adrianglass

Dankoozy wrote: »

how many horsepowers,engines,cylinders,propellers?

Oh - lots ! <g> - see the website

MV Julia General Characteristics

Year of Build: 1982

Gross Tonnage: 21,699

IMO Number: 8020642

Length: 153.4 metres

Extreme Breadth: 24.24 metres

Draught: 5.82 metres

Lane Metres: 710 metres

Main Engines: 4 x Pielstick 8 PC2-5L

Diesel Generators:
2 x MAK 8m 332AK(1200kw) , 2x MAK 6M 332AK (900kw), 1 x Caterpillar V8

Service Speed: 20.0 kts

Wave Height Restriction: 4.0 metres

Adrian

deRanged

it would be great if the public could tour the vessel while it's tied up in Cork.

MunsterCycling

deRanged wrote: »

it would be great if the public could tour the vessel while it's tied up in Cork.

I agree maybe with a draw for a free trip when she's up and running, well done all. :P

grenache

Saw her yesterday while coming back from Tivoli. I'd gladly pay 5 or 10 Euro for a guided tour. She's a magnificent looking vessel.

adrianglass

deRanged wrote: »

it would be great if the public could tour the vessel while it's tied up in Cork.

We'd love to make that happen - appraently there are some fairly horrendous insurance issues that need to be adressed before we can do this - but we're looking into it. There's some photos of the ship inside & out on the website - www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com

Adrian

beer enigma

Dankoozy wrote: »

english folk have no money either, maybe after the recession

but is it really worth having more obnoxious brits who want to think they are 'jenny from the countryside' around the place?

Hey - I'm the OP & I'm a Brit lol :D

but I'm not obnoxious :cool:....or rich.....:( and my name def aint Jenny :pac:

dahamsta

Plus of course Swansea is in Wales, not England. And the UK is already out of recession. Not that I'm a pedant or anything.

castie

Very nice looking ship.

Any idea why the first sailing isnt until March?

adrianglass

castie wrote: »

Very nice looking ship.

Any idea why the first sailing isnt until March?

Yes - the main thing is that the marketing of the service will take a while to put in place (it costs as much to run an empty ship as one full of paying passengers!) and there's the whole business of maintenance and recruitment to tackle.

It's vital that she's as 'full' as possible from day 1 - and getting that level of occupancy takes time. Once she is sailing again, we don;t want her to have any 'down time' through mechanical problems - so a very thorough maintenance program will take place - and there are a few things that need to be done before she can gain her full safety approvals from the Irish authorities.

One of the first prioritites will be to get the booking systems up & running - as I'm currently deluged by emails asking 'when can I book' - although there is a 'Pre-booking' form on the Fastnetline.com website where you can give us your email address and we'll get back to you the instant bookings are being taken.

There's some great photos on the website at www.bringbackthesawanseacorkferry.com

Adrian

DannyBuoy

adrianglass wrote: »

...
There's some great photos on the website at www.bringbackthesawanseacorkferry.com
Adrian

Link spelt wrong there Adrian..

berireland

We used to use the old Swansea Cork Ferry and it was really handy, after a good night sleep arrive refreshed by 9am in Bristol.

I have attached a deckplan of the vessel, well laid out with great facilities. We are really lookin forward to 1st March 2010 (St Davids Day)

I have followed this campgain by an amazing bunch of people, with self determination and a shoestring budget bring this together. This will be a great addition to buisness and tourism in the Southwest. To all involved in the hard work a Big Thank You.

Irish : Go Raibh Mile Maith Agat = 1000 Thank yous

Welsh: Diolch yn fawr iawn = Thank you

Many words on both sides of the Irish Sea saying the same thing, Thank you.

wexlady

do you know if the ferry company are hiring any crew? i've been searching the net and cant find anything used to work a ship before and would love to go back and work on one again.

suppafly

berireland wrote: »

We used to use the old Swansea Cork Ferry and it was really handy, after a good night sleep arrive refreshed by 9am in Bristol.

Ya it really is dead handy. We used it all the time to Visit my aunt that lives in Swansea. It was really handy the night sails as u just went for a sleep and theng to up and had a nice breakfast on the boat and headed off. Delighted that its coming back again. I wish it every sucess!

Illkillya

Julia

deRanged

well, some people are getting tours. hopefully the insurance problems can be sorted so the general public can get on board. it might be a nice revenue stream before the main service goes live!

dahamsta

Should fire a webcam on it while she's being refitted too, or at least take regular shots of it. People loved watching CIX develop as we built it. (Start from the bottom and work forward with "next entries".)

ziedth

Hi all,

My Grandmother (Bless her) has a real love for old fashioned boats and she went out of her way to tell everyone in the family that the Cork Swansea boat was starting up again. So, in a nutshell we are all gonna surprise her and take her off for a night for her birthday in prob last weekend in march.

Does anyone have any info on it? its hard to track down online by the look of it. Mainly I'd just like to have an idea of price without car,sailings,days,times. Wasn't it running before? even the info for that would give me a rough idea.

Thanks in advance.

adrianglass

ziedth wrote: »

Hi all,

My Grandmother (Bless her) has a real love for old fashioned boats and she went out of her way to tell everyone in the family that the Cork Swansea boat was starting up again. So, in a nutshell we are all gonna surprise her and take her off for a night for her birthday in prob last weekend in march.

Does anyone have any info on it? its hard to track down online by the look of it. Mainly I'd just like to have an idea of price without car,sailings,days,times. Wasn't it running before? even the info for that would give me a rough idea.

Thanks in advance.

HI
Great to hear that you're going to give your Grandmother a treat - lovely idea!
The reason that the info's hard to track down is because it's not yet available - but the guys at www.fastnetline.com are working hard to get their online booking site up & running just as fast as humanly possible.

I know that they're very much aware of the need to be competitive on pricing - but don't know any more than that. The overnight sailing was one of the things that people said they liked about the old service - so I don't expect that will change....

Now that there's a full-time CEO on-board, things will start to happen faster!

So - for the time being - keep an eye on www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com and www.fastnetline.com (where there's a 'prebooking' email list signup).

Hope this helps
Adrian

ziedth

cheers, i signed up and all on the mailing list. Thanks for the help.

sullysmum

My husband a cork city man now living in uk says he has travelled a few times on a swansea to cork ferry and says it terminated at the ferry terminal in actual cork city but all i can find is the new fastnet ferry starting march that goes from swansea to cork that terminates at ringaskiddy which apparantly is 9 miles form cork city centre.Does anyone know what goes where as i am getting so confused and i need to book a ferry crossing and back but dont know which is which service,please can anyone help? Thankyou.

murphym7

sullysmum wrote: »

My husband a cork city man now living in uk says he has travelled a few times on a swansea to cork ferry and says it terminated at the ferry terminal in actual cork city but all i can find is the new fastnet ferry starting march that goes from swansea to cork that terminates at ringaskiddy which apparantly is 9 miles form cork city centre.Does anyone know what goes where as i am getting so confused and i need to book a ferry crossing and back but dont know which is which service,please can anyone help? Thankyou.

The Swansea Cork ferry went from Swansea to Ringaskiddy up to a few years ago but got cancelled. After years of campaigning the service is begining again under the name Fasnet - this is the ferry you want to book. The ferry from Swansea never went as far as the city, it always went to Ringaskiddy. Have a nice trip.

sullysmum

Thankyou so much,my hubby is elderly and must have been mistaken,im so pleased to know where im going and what im doing!

patbundy

murphym7 wrote: »

The Swansea Cork ferry went from Swansea to Ringaskiddy up to a few years ago but got cancelled. After years of campaigning the service is begining again under the name Fasnet - this is the ferry you want to book. The ferry from Swansea never went as far as the city, it always went to Ringaskiddy. Have a nice trip.

sorry murphym7 it did but that about 40 years ago, it set sail from penrose wharf then it move down to tivoli for afew years when it was b&i.but they closed that service down but when it was restarted it moved to ringaskiddy

-Corkie-

I used to use it all the time before really missed it when it stopped look forward to using it again;);)

Papa_Lazarou

It's a beautiful looking ship as well. Looks gigantic against the penrose wharf buidlings when you are walking from the bus station

Atlantic1

Where has Julia gone? I passed by yesterday and she wasn't there! Not stolen, surely!!?? :eek:

Luno

Atlantic1 wrote: »

Where has Julia gone? I passed by yesterday and she wasn't there! Not stolen, surely!!?? :eek:

Its down in Ringaskiddy atm . . .
Its a beaut though, massive!

Atlantic1

Massive, alright. Looking forward to taking a spin to Wales. Thanks for the info, M&S.

Max001

Dankoozy wrote: »

english folk have no money either, maybe after the recession

but is it really worth having more obnoxious brits who want to think they are 'jenny from the countryside' around the place?

There's always one :rolleyes:

ScrubsfanChris

This is my suite for the first trip I think

http://www.fastnetline.com/westcorksuite.html

sullysmum

patbundy wrote: »

sorry murphym7 it did but that about 40 years ago, it set sail from penrose wharf then it move down to tivoli for afew years when it was b&i.but they closed that service down but when it was restarted it moved to ringaskiddy

Thankyou, hubby was right! :rolleyes:

gunnerfitzy

Cork to Swansea in mid-May for car & two adults: €258. Rosslare to Cherbourg in mid-May for car & two adults: €258.

Notwithstanding the fact that I can get to France for the same price (allbeit by driving to Rosslare) what I am really disappointed with is that a reserved seat on the Cork-Swansea route is €17 per person!!! This is free on Rosslare to Cherbourg/Roscoff routes. Not impressed!!

jimmysull

gunnerfitzy wrote: »

Cork to Swansea in mid-May for car & two adults: €258. Rosslare to Cherbourg in mid-May for car & two adults: €258.

Notwithstanding the fact that I can get to France for the same price (allbeit by driving to Rosslare) what I am really disappointed with is that a reserved seat on the Cork-Swansea route is €17 per person!!! This is free on Rosslare to Cherbourg/Roscoff routes. Not impressed!!

Ironically, the cost of petrol from Cork to Rosslare and back will be about €40 so unless you want to specifically go to France the Cork Swansea option works out a few euro less expensive

Just on the Ireland to UK option, my opinion is that the new Swansea Cork route is very welcome. I drive to London from Cork at least twice a year and believe me the worst part of the journey is from Fishguard to where the M4 starts near Swansea....saving that drive is worth much more than whatever few euro extra they charge....
The website says you are saving a full 600km (almost 400 miles?) on a return trip: http://www.fastnetline.com/ That alone would cost €60+ in petrol.

beer enigma

I was looking to book for a holiday this year, but we have three kids (9, 6 & 5) & unless you could get the 'suite' it meant two cabins ! - bizzare as there's no way we'd separate the kids on a journey.

I queried it by phone but was told anything over four people (no matter what their size) meant the extra cabin, so I've booked with Stena