Storm Barra - December 7th/8th 2021

The Swift is in dock at Liverpool, has been for several months, it doesn't sail outside of peak summer season, partly because they end up cancelling a significant number of crossings during the winter months.

The Epsilon is half the size of the Stena ships and the Ulysses, and as a result, in weather like we've seen this week, it is NOT a nice ship to travel on. A number of years ago, they had a severe incident during a crossing from Cherbourg to Dublin, which resulted in significant damage to the ship and a number of vehicles, and that was while they were sheltering in Barnstaple Bay to stay out of the worst of a storm. They've spent the last 24 hours sailing up and down off Drogheda as there's nowhere in Dublin to moor it, and Holyhead is even worse. I have no inside information to confirm this, but going by the speeds they have been doing in recent days, I am wondering if there has been some sort of engine issue, so reduced power, they tried twice to get into Holyhead in the last few days, and failed, despite there being 2 tugs available to assist, and some of the recent crossings have been at very reduced speeds compared to what they normally operate at.

The Irish sea can be a very hostile piece of water with some wind directions, the larger ships now in use have made crossings in poor weather more tolerable, but the smaller ships do not cope well with the combinations of wind and waves that are too often the normal between Dublin and Holyhead, and the crossings to and from Rosslare can be even more challenging, but that also is partly a factor of smaller ships being used on that route.