Irish Ferries brings new Dublin Swift fast craft into sea

Dr Brown

Irish Ferries has improved its fast ferry offering on the Dublin - Holyhead route with the introduction of high-speed craft ‘Dublin Swift’ which entered service today on the route following a full internal refurbishment.
It replaces the ‘Jonathan Swift’ which has been in service since 1999.
This new addition to the Irish Ferries fleet will operate at a cruising speed of 35 knots to the same frequency of twice daily return sailings as the vessel it is replacing.

The new Dublin Swift has greater car (220) and passenger (820) carrying capacity and offers a redesigned interior and upgraded level of passenger accommodation.
Configured differently on the inside, the passenger accommodation area is contained throughout a single deck design rather than the double deck layout familiar to passengers previously.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/business/irish-ferries-brings-new-dublin-swift-fast-craft-into-service-on-dublin--holyhead-route-839605.html

Atlantic Dawn

She was refit in Belfast, looks like they did a great job.

https://afloat.ie/port-news/ferry-news/item/39069-debut-of-dublin-swift-as-new-fast-craft-makes-maiden-voyage

tricky D

Launched yeaterday afternoon with a fire tug display which looked great.

Atlantic Dawn

Some drone footage...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXrQub_wgkE

munchkin_utd

interestingly the Westpac Express, now Dublin swift, was a forerunner for a bigger series of 9 ships to be built for the US navy
http://www.msc.navy.mil/inventory/ships.asp?ship=232

The long rear ramp is now located to the side allowing quayside unloading.

CJhaughey

I was on the Stena Adventurer and we passed the Swift heading out of Dublin, pretty impressive vessel it certainly didn't look like 35 kts but the size makes it hard to judge.
I'd like to take that sometime to experience it.
They are Austal ships who make some other non conventional hulled vessels.

GTE

Is there anything to be said about the reliability of the two Swift's?

A friend was meant to be on the new one and the sailing was cancelled. He said he heard that Swift service gets cancelled due to reliability quite a bit.

I only found out now that there is a new Swift.

Irish Steve

It's not reliability that causes most cancellations, it's wave height or a combination of wave height and wind direction, due to the width of the (twin hull) fast craft, they roll a lot more for a given wave than the traditional mono hull, which can make for problems with vehicles moving, and a bad passenger experience, if you're sitting close to the edge on a bad trip, it's a bit like being in a high speed lift that's constantly going up and down 2 floors, and it's NOT a nice experience, especially for poor sailers.

When the ultra large fast craft were first introduced on the Irish Sea by Stena, (I got lucky and was on the first HSS service out of Dun Laoghaire) they were supposed to be capable of operating in up to 7 Mtr wave heights, but it became apparent very early on that whoever said that had never travelled on a fast ferry on the Irish Sea, and one of the other things that pretty much killed them off was the problems of having to reverse in through the dock entry at Holyhead, there were more than a few occasions when the combination of wind direction and wave height proved too much of a challenge for the automation that was supposed to perform the task, and the result was several occasions where contact was made with the walls.

Even now, the Irish Ferries fast craft has to use different berths depending on the time of the sailing, and getting on to the alternate berth on occasions is tricky.

I do wonder if the Irish Ferry fast craft will be moved down to run on the Rosslare Pembroke route in the summer months once the second large ferry comes on line, to provide a more frequent service on the southern route, but that's only speculation on my part.

Tabnabs

So I hear the Dublin Swift is/was/will be again, out of action because of

engine reliability issues

. The overall verdict is, thankfully she'll be out for service for winter soon.

L1011

Really suffering this weekend - Epsilon down for "operational reasons" and Swift "in doubt" for "weather"

Tried to bump me from the Epsilon Sunday evening inbound to the middle of the night Swift, but suggesting they cancel the entire round trip suddenly found a space on the Ulysses. My car takes up less lane space than nearly everything else so I may have to park sideways between two trucks for all I know :pac:

Seve OB

why did they bother with this "new" ship?
it's only 2 years younger. and from what I iread, it is basically a twin of the old swift with a slightly different layout.
they made a small profit on the trade up, but I imagine they blew that out of the water with whatever refurb they did on it

would it not have made more sense to just strip out the old vessel and give it a major overhaul?

L1011

It's bigger. That was the main driver

Tabnabs

They bought her years ago and had a time charter with the US Navy. The cost to bring it to Europe and refit it was insignificant when compared to buying a similar ship.

Seve OB

Tabnabs wrote: »

They bought her years ago and had a time charter with the US Navy. The cost to bring it to Europe and refit it was insignificant when compared to buying a similar ship.

my point exactly. they had a similar ship

though L1011 says this one is bigger.

But did I not read they were basically the same chassis or whatever the shipping term is, so I just figured it was bigger because of how it was essentially furnished inside.

anyway, I just thought it was odd to be buying a ship basically just as old and not much different to the one they just got rid of

Tabnabs

Seve OB wrote: »

my point exactly. they had a similar ship

though L1011 says this one is bigger.

But did I not read they were basically the same chassis or whatever the shipping term is, so I just figured it was bigger because of how it was essentially furnished inside.

anyway, I just thought it was odd to be buying a ship basically just as old and not much different to the one they just got rid of

The JS had a hard life with very little down time when compared to the DS, which will have a lot less wear and tear on her engines, hull etc.

But again, IF bought the DS years ago (presumably a deal too good to pass up on) and made money out of her with someone else before bringing her into the Company fleet.

L1011

Seve OB wrote: »

my point exactly. they had a similar ship

though L1011 says this one is bigger.

But did I not read they were basically the same chassis or whatever the shipping term is, so I just figured it was bigger because of how it was essentially furnished inside.

anyway, I just thought it was odd to be buying a ship basically just as old and not much different to the one they just got rid of

Its 15m longer, 2m wider; so its the larger model of the same family.

Irish Steve

So, having had my travel plans well and truly blown out of the water recently, with a very late cancellation of the overnight Epsilon rotation on Aug 28th, did anyone hear what the "extraordinary" circumstances were that led to the cancellation.

My own guess looking at the delays and slower crossing times is that they had a major engine failure, at one stage, shortly before we had the text message about the cancellation, Ulysses was delayed coming into Dublin as Epsilon hadn't cleared the berth, then it was moving, but going in strange directions, and taking a lot longer than it was supposed to, it looks like they had to go to Holyhead to pick up spares, and then spend time repairing it while on the move, as it couldn't stay on the berth as they needed it for Ulysses. Either way, having to get to the port for the evening Ulysses sailing rather than the 0200 was not easy, and it seems they put the passengers from the Holyhead rotation on to Stena, but real information was sadly lacking.

The Ulysses sailing we were on was well full, I've not seen the drop down decks so full for a while, and it took a long time to unload at Holyhead.

It's not been a good summer for Irish Ferries, between the Ulysses being off line for several weeks, ongoing problems with the Swift not being swift, and then problems with Epsilon, I find myself wondering if they are pushing them too hard, or if it's a case of not doing maintenance that's needed. Whichever it is, I can't remember a period where there have been so many issues with reliability as there seem to have been this year.

Tabnabs

Stena have had a solid season. Other than the novelty of going on the Swift, I'm not sure why anyone would take a punt on IF actually being reliable and getting you across when you needed to travel.?

Seve OB

Tabnabs wrote: »

Stena have had a solid season. Other than the novelty of going on the Swift, I'm not sure why anyone would take a punt on IF actually being reliable and getting you across when you needed to travel.?

because it's quicker?

Tabnabs

Only when it's working right...

Irish Steve

The morning Swift from Dublin, and the afternoon one from Holyhead are popular with foot passengers who are then going on by rail, as they offer better connections if the distance involved is further than Chester.

Having said that, I find myself wondering if there will be changes when the second new large ferry for the Holyhead route comes on line, the Epsilon does not take foot passengers, which limits the options somewhat, and it was clear that it came on line as a stop gap, my own thoughts are that we may well see the Swift put down to Rosslare in the summer months to offer a fast link into Pembroke, as with only one ship on the route at present, there's no option for early mornings from Pembroke, or afternoons from Rosslare. I would not expect the Swift to operate on that route in the winter period, due to the weather implications.

In fairness to Irish Ferries, while they've had a bad year PR wise, the Ulysses has a very good record of operating in vile weather conditions when just about everything else was tied securely to the dock, a few years ago, around Halloween, it was the only ship operating for close on a week due to storms, but they managed to keep going on schedule without any real issues, we travelled on one of those sailings, and despite the weather, it was not a bad crossing.

The delay on the WB Yeats has clearly hurt, and the dockyard will I suspect be being hit for substantial penalties for their failure to deliver on time, unless the problems were caused by late specification changes, my instinct is that the delays were caused in part by the bad weather over the winter, which may well have caused problems with the delivery of some of the larger modules that were built externally and transported by barge to the final assembly dockyard, but there's been very little said in the public domain about what went wrong. What is for sure is that the next ship won't be coming on line so close to the delivery date, if they have their heads screwed on right.

The complete unknown is what's going to change as a result of Brexit. There is clearly a line of thought that goes along the lines of making sure that there are options for direct routes into France on a regular basis for significant quantities of freight, which is likely to increase if things go as badly as is being suggested by some parties. The possible implications to costs for Ireland if that happens are going to be a major concern, it's already a significant factor in the cost of both imports and exports, and if there are going to be delays in the UK that will be avoided by going direct to or from France, the additional costs of that change will not be small, all we can hope is that the EU will provide some support for Ireland to cover the costs that will adversely affect Ireland in ways that won't be affecting most of the rest of the EU.

In the worst case scenario, we might even see 2 large ships operating to France from Dublin, with Ulysses and Epsilon operating the Holyhead route, but that's very much speculation on my part without any numbers to back it up. As for what will be done with the Swift in that scenario, that's guesswork.

davidjtaylor

Anyone know what the crack is with booking Irish Ferries in early January 2019?

Stena have sailing times but Irish Ferries comes up "No Sailings Found for your search criteria" for 2/1/2019 to 9/1/2019.

Irish Steve

davidjtaylor wrote: »

Anyone know what the crack is with booking Irish Ferries in early January 2019?

Stena have sailing times but Irish Ferries comes up "No Sailings Found for your search criteria" for 2/1/2019 to 9/1/2019.

Which route, it's possible that there may not be any sailings due to ships being moved around during the annual maintenance periods, especially on the French and Rosslare Pembroke routes.

man98

IF running the Swift out of Pembroke Dock is surely a no go because the time it takes to get out of Milford Haven Harbour would surely mean a 2:15 sailing time. Stena is 3:15 and would be significantly cheaper, surely it wouldn't make much sense - I'd probably welcome it either way however.

davidjtaylor

Irish Steve wrote: »

Which route, it's possible that there may not be any sailings due to ships being moved around during the annual maintenance periods, especially on the French and Rosslare Pembroke routes.

Damn, I forgot to say, sorry. Dublin Holyhead.

Tabnabs

Irish Ferries regrets to advise that due to technical reasons, the 08:05hrs Ulysses Cruise Ferry sailing is cancelled.

Irish Ferries regrets to advise that due to adverse weather conditions on the Irish Sea, the 14:15hrs Swift Fast Craft sailing is cancelled.

Irish Ferries regrets to advise that due to operational reasons, the 08:30hrs Epsilon Cruise Ferry sailing is cancelled.

https://www.irishferries.com/uk-en/sailing-updates/dublin-holyhead/

Not having a good day, again...

Irish Steve

Tabnabs wrote: »

https://www.irishferries.com/uk-en/sailing-updates/dublin-holyhead/

Not having a good day, again...

Indeed, things seem to have gone very pear shaped today, and not all of it is weather related, and their web site is considerably less than informative.


On the booking side, I've asked the question, but so far, no one has responded, it seems that for some reason, there's no schedule up beyond the end of December at the moment, which would be unusual. If/when I get a response from them, I will post it here.

davidjtaylor

Irish Steve wrote: »

On the booking side, I've asked the question, but so far, no one has responded, it seems that for some reason, there's no schedule up beyond the end of December at the moment, which would be unusual. If/when I get a response from them, I will post it here.

Hey, thanks.

Tabnabs

Big U seems to be drifting off the coast of Holyhead currently, that doesn't look good...

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:123560/mmsi:209952000/imo:9214991/vessel:ULYSSES

HeidiHeidi

Tabnabs wrote: »

Big U seems to be drifting off the coast of Holyhead currently, that doesn't look good...

https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/details/ships/shipid:123560/mmsi:209952000/imo:9214991/vessel:ULYSSES

Looks like she left around 9am, got so far and returned about 11.30, left again after 1pm and got a bit further and seems to be returning to port again :eek:

Tabnabs

Think she may have had to leave to allow the Stena Adventurer in, as the Epsilon is obviously out of commission and can't leave that berth. What a mess.

Irish Steve

Seems to be all manner of unspecified problems, made worse by adverse weather, the number of cancellation at the moment is mind numbimg, and there seems to be nothing being said about the reasons, which is even more worrying, given the number of companies that depend on the services.

The lack of updates about the WB Yeats is also not looking good, that's another issue that seems to have fallen off the radar recently.

davidjtaylor

Got this from Irish Ferries:

On 21 Sep 2018, at 14:37, info@irishferries.com wrote:

Hi David,

Thank you for your email.

I'm afraid our timetable and fares are only available up until the 06th of January - we would hope the remainder of our fares will be available within the next 2 weeks.

Apologies for the inconvenience caused.

Thanks and Regards,

Eve Clarke
Online Support Team