Rough Car Ferry Crossings

Road-Hog

Not sure if this is the forum (Mods feel free to redirect if necessary), anyway just wondering if there is anyone that might have been on a particular Stena Line crossing in December 1981 from Fishguard to Rosslare. A freight ship on its way to Ireland and a life boat (Penlee) were both lost on this particular night...........I was a very young passenger on the Car Ferry (Stena Normandica) and will never forget it, some reports say there were force 10 to 12 gales resulting in 70 ft waves, in any case the ferry company decided to set sail into this storm but after about an hour or so decided to turn around..........the exact date was December 19th 1981........would be interested to know if there was anyone on this particular ferry and if so would be interested to hear their recollection of events

Lapin

Some of the sailors in the Martime Forum might know.


In my own experience, my worst crossing was between Holyhead and North Wall or Dun Laoighaire when I was travelling home from London for Easter about 18 years ago.

It was a very rough night and although everyone was boarded, I still didn't think she'd set sail.

But sail she did - Eventually.

I found a nice comfy spot in the bar (of course) to plonk myself for the overnight crossing.

As we set off from Wales on very choppy waters I had fun watching others falling around the place as they staggered and fell over on their up to the bar before they even had a drink.

My smugness soon came back to haunt me however.

About an hour out to sea the boat was greeted by an almighty gust of wind in the storm or a huge wave, or a combination of both just as I was casually carrying my third pint back to my seat to continue my victim watching.

It knocked me arse over tit and sent my pint flying in every direction except where I had just paid for it to go.

Meanwhile every empty glass behind the bar went crashing to the floor in an avalance of noise that seemed to last for a good 2 minutes.

After this the bar was closed for the rest of our voyage accross the Irish Sea. :mad:

I arrived in the centre of Dublin about 8 hours later. Around noon.





On Good Friday.

Stinicker

I sailed from Swansea to Cork in 2006 and it was quite rough, went to a bunk and was gently rocked to sleep but it got rougher and it was a surreal weirdly nice experience and was only matched by an overnight train in Thailand a few years later, I slept like a log and I think the continuous movement helped.

Davidth88

The roughest crossing I had was Jan 2001 Holyhead ---- Dublin

Driving up from London I was certain the crossing would be cancelled , I stopped and phoned a couple of times to check.

Anyway we set sail , I was talking to the staff they were saying it was daft because they knew we would be the only ship sailing ..... the Stena didn't go for example

Anyway I was sitting reading , and started to feel a little ' queasy ' so decided to move to the middle of the boat.

As I got up and stumbled away from where I was sitting there was an almighty crash.... I looked behind , the table I was sitting at was in pieces with a large TV that was above smashed on it..... If I had not moved I would have been hit , and almost certainly badly hurt or worse !!!


scary.

Poochie05

My family travelled to France from Cork in Dec 1981, so probably the same time as the OP. The ship delayed departure by a day or so (was very young so may be sketchy on details) and we stayed in the Silver Springs hotel. Crossing was so rough a truck overturned on the car deck and there were oranges everywhere. This was same trip when we came home in early January to snowmageddon, it took us 3 days to get home from Cork to Wicklow! It was just beginning to snow when we left France but we had no idea of what was going on in Ireland. Luckily one of our neighbours had dug our house out as the snow was all the way up to the eves (it was a bungalow).

And by way of complete contrast, a few weeks ago we were travelling back from France with a VERY rough crossing but the ship had the stabiliser on and it really made it much more pleasant. I was quite surprised how much difference it made.

ballooba

Poochie05 wrote: »

And by way of complete contrast, a few weeks ago we were travelling back from France with a VERY rough crossing but the ship had the stabiliser on and it really made it much more pleasant. I was quite surprised how much difference it made.

This has given me solace, I'm off on the ferry to France soon.