New Irish Ferries ship

Hopefully, it will also be capable of taking walk on passengers, the 02:00 sailing to Holyhead would be a LOT more attractive than going on the 20:00 sailing and having to sit there at the station for hours until the first train.

I have to wonder if the arrival of a much larger ship will be the precursor of the end of the fast ferry service, given how unreliable it is during the winter months.

Stena never openly talked about it, but on some routes, the commercial drivers wouldn't use the fast ferries, as they didn't get a long enough break period, and were having problems with tachograph records as a result. I think Harwich Hook of Holland was the big issue, as the HSS on that route was about 3 hours, compared to 8 hours on the traditional ferries.

Whatever about operating costs, which were significant, I think the other issue was that the HSS family never did achieve the level of certification that the designers promised in terms of wave height, and I know from painful experience that in a 6 Mtr swell, the ride was not comfortable if it was a beam sea, the roll from side to side was not at all comfortable, especially if you were sitting on the outer edges of the vessel, it was comparable to being in a fast lift, and for anyone that was not a good traveller (like my wife) it was a very unpleasant experience. We did eventually discover a few seats at the back of the lower deck beside the main walkway area that were a lot closer to the centre line, so a lot less movement, but even there, on a rough day, which there were plenty of during the winter months, it could still be a challenging trip. That's no fun if you are looking at a 4 or 5 hour road journey on the other side after the crossing.

The modern ships like Ulysses can't even begin to be compared to the old ships that the HSS and the like replaced, the capacity, loading and offloading times, cabins, general passenger services and the ride quality are light years ahead of what was on offer on things like the Hibernia and The Earl WIlliam and similar.

Yes, the faster journey times of the HSS were nice, but the absolute requirement for me is reliability, which the HSS (and the other fast ferries like Lynx and the Jonathan Swift) just could not deliver on the Irish Sea, for whatever reason. Then the combined effect of fuel prices, the loss of duty free sales and the increased competition from low cost flights meant that the ferries lost their appeal for many people.

That said, my (elderly) parents happily come to Ireland from the South West of the UK by rail and ferry on a regular basis, even though it takes close on 12 hours, because the overall experience is a lot less stressful for them than having to cope with airport security and the like, even though it would be a much shorter time to fly over.

Irish Steve wrote: »

There would be 2 advantages as far as I'm concerned. The first is that it would be a better alternative if the Swift is cancelled in the afternoon, at present, if the 1700 crossing ex Holyhead is cancelled, the next available crossing is the Ulysses at 02 or thereabouts, if so hopefully, the new ship will be able to offer an alternative at around 20:00, which would be a lot more acceptable, especially for foot passengers that have got to Holyhead by rail. While the crossing at 20 is longer, it would also open up later train times into Holyhead that would be more attractive for some of the longer distances.

I am aware that I could use Stena from Dublin, but for preference, mainly on the Southern route, I use Irish Ferries, mainly because the journey time from Pembroke is better than the Fishguard route, and using Stena will complicate frequent traveller bonuses.

I once got moved from the main Stena ship as it was cancelled to a small ship a few years ago as a SailRail passenger, can't remember what ship it was but it was not really cut out for anything more than truckers, ended up at Dublin Port in the early hours of the morning in the soaking rain trying to get a cab as they locked the doors as soon as I collected the luggage.

I normally sail on the Ulysses though, occasionally the fast ferry but not very often, depends on timings and capacity, look forward to seeing this new ship, although seems whilst it can take more vehicles it can take less people according to the details released?