Maritime News Thread

Seems Irish Ferries are having a bad time just at the moment, there are 2 ships in Belfast at the moment, WB Yeats looks like it's in dry dock, and Blue Star 1 is now moored along side the dry dock, the result is that there's no Irish Ferries sailings on Rosslare Pembroke route at the moment, and the Cherbourg route is being sailed by Epsilon, so only one ship on the Holyhead Dublin route.

Travelled on both of them recently, not impressed with Blue Star 1, the trip over to Pembroke was smooth, as there was no weather at all, but the entire trip was noisy, with a lot of vibration, the impression being that one of the 4 engines was running at a different speed to the other 3, and that was causing anything even slightly loose to vibrate noticeably with a strange repetitive pattern. The ship is similar in size to the previous one, but the difference is very noticeable.

Epsilon from Holyhead to Dublin a couple of weeks later was a completely unpleasant crossing, and I'm unlikely to ever book on that ship again, having become used to the Ulysses over a number of years, the difference between them is chalk and cheese, both in terms of how they sail, and the general passenger comfort levels, for me, Epsilon is just not suitable for the Irish Sea at this time of the year.

So, anyone know why there are 2 ships in Belfast at the moment? This is not the normal time of year for scheduled maintenance, and the impression from the Irish Ferries site is that they've cancelled sailings, if they'd been doing scheduled inspections/maintenance, they would not have been taking bookings in the first place.

I don't think that either of them are there for scheduled maintenance, in that the web site is showing cancelled crossings "for technical reasons", Epsilon has been taken off the Holyhead route to cover the Yeats sailings from Dublin to Cherbourg, and I'd hate to be on that thing in any sort of gales, having done a crossing from Holyhead to Dublin recently on it, the thought of 24 hours on that thing doesn't bear thinking about.

Blue Star 1 is also showing cancelled for technical reasons, and is moored in the main channel alongside the graving dock that W B Yeats is in, and having also been on it, I'm not altogether surprised, the vibration on it a few weeks ago was only woeful, I'd have to wonder if something has failed on one of the prop shafts bearings or similar, given how rough it was sounding when we went over to Pembroke, and the sea that night could not have been quieter, so it wasn't sea state related.

I doubt that Irish Ferries are going to be saying much, so it's going to need someone on the inside to let it slip as to what is being done, it might happen, or they might just come back without any updates. It would be slightly worrying if Yeats has a major technical issue, given how new it is, but that's only a guess, and not based on firm information.

Time will hopefully tell.

That ties in with some comments that I've seen on another site since making my original post, but there's no confirmation of the details.

Seems that the W B Yeats is a scheduled maintenance visit/refit, but it's over run time wise, which with Covid and supply train issues comes as no great surprise.