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Do Stena view Fishguard-Rosslare as a route in its own right which has to make a profit or do they view the Irish market as one - with them, as market leaders, covering every sector offering a complete suite of alternative routes and crossings for hauliers to choose from? If the latter, there could be very good strategic reasons to keep Fishguard open even if the profitability is low or non-existant (and with the age of the Stena Europe the capital cost involved in the route is minimal, albeit operational costs will be higher than using a newer ship). In Scandinavia the Grenaa-Varberg route is by repute kept open as a spoiler just so that no-one else ever again dares to come close to entering the market in competition on Stena's home turf.

Stena have been involved in quite a few joint ventures, not least P&O Stena Line but also as owners of the Swedish part of Scandlines until it all got absorbed into mainstream Stena Line. They even managed to go into a joint venture with themselves when HH Ferries and Scandlines, which had been operating in competition despite being owned by different branches of the Stena group, came together a couple of years back. Then there have been myriad one or two-ship operations, such as Stena Daea Line, Stena SeaLine and, a few years back, Stena Tor Line.

Ventouris have spent a little bit of money each year since she has been in their ownership. Initially they converted the forward of the upper lounges to cabins, then a couple of years later they converted the after of the two and also built the new cafe adjacent to the self-service where Balearia had put reclining seats. The crew mess is also in this area, another former reclining seat lounge. Then this year has come the new upper lounge. She's an effective little ship and moderately pleasant on one of her quieter runs or if you have a cabin. I wonder if Ventouris might put one of their larger units on this route next summer.

FWIW the bar is not as built - BR wouldn't have allowed a pub looking like that on one of their ships which were designed to look modern rather than twee. That was installed when the original bar, the Canterbury Bar, was ripped out in the mid-80s by SBF and has remained basically the same ever since.

Nice pictures. She's in not too shabby condition all things considered, certainly her best since around 2005ish when her previous owners lavished a lot of money on a big refit which left her quite pleasant on board (if she could ever be such a thing).

The deckplan doesn't show it (and you can't quite see from most externals) but they've built a new reclining seat lounge/conservatory on her over the past winter, aft of where the Motorists' Lounge used to be. Given every public space on board other than the forward bar and self service had already been converted to cabins this is a sensible move - she takes plenty of people travelling deck so upgrading them to a seat is easy money and it should pay for itself relatively quickly.

These ships are being built on a budget - not a bad thing necessarily, but don't be expecting a 'Superferry' experience. Basically you will get a similar experience as on the P&O North Channel vessels - Small, compact, and made to be efficient.

Regards the convertibly, P&O did it in the 90s with the European Seaway / Pathway / Highway. Pride of Burgundy was intended to be a freighter, but the design allowed this to be changed. Pride of Canterbury & Kent are also the result of this careful planning. Unknown to some P&O have their very own 'poability'.

Regards building in China, Destination Gotland have been doing it for years, and currently are.

The European class freighters are actually not ideal examples as, when the Darwins were converted, P&O were told that the hulls just weren't strong enough to cope with the planned additional superstructure. So they had to compromise and reduce the size of the accommodation modules. Certainly P&O, and most other operators, don't add superfluous structural members into new ships hulls just in case there is a need for lengthening or heightening 10 years down the line. That is what Stenability can really mean - the investment of cash when ships are being built with an eye to seeing what might possibly be required later on.

Just because the yard is cheap has little relation on the quality of outfit of the interiors - Stena built the early '70s quartet in Yugoslavia (having been tipped off by their friends at Knud E Hansen and Gotlandsbolaget about the huge savings to be found there). They had problems in ensuring appropriate basic build quality but the six ships built as part of this combined contract (4 Stena and 2 Gotland) had interior fittings of a very high quality, the Visby and Gotland in particular. Stena always fit out (and repeatedly refit) their ships to a higher standard than their rivals, certainly on the Irish Sea, and there is no sign at all that this will change.

Gotlandsbolaget are sort of a 'works' operator for KEH who do everything for them on newbuilds and have done since the 1960s - evaluating shipyards and their bids, project managing and overseeing the build and supervising the trials. Plus, in earlier days, carrying out the interior design. Every Gotland ship has gone to the cheapest shipyard, often with no practical experience, and it's been left to KEH to sort out the mess. Not many operators would be happy with this sort of arrangement. The Visby and Gotland of 1964 came from yards which had never built proper car ferries before, as did the Yugoslavian pair mentioned above, the 1990s Gotland and the current pair. It's a risky business but the overall savings can be huge - the two current ships were approximately 25% cheaper than building in a European yard.

These ships are pretty much a combination of European Endeavour and European Highlander, but with higher freight capacities and passenger certificates. Possibly a bit of Isle of Inishfree (Pride of Cherbourg) thrown in as well.

I can't really see too much in these ships that specifically compares to anything P&O have other than they have a pointy end, carry lorries and float. Stena tend to lead, not follow.

As for the cost - they are certainly good buys, a fact heightened by the fact that Stena will have built into them a host of future convertibility options that more conservative operators won't/don't bother with but which adds to the price in additional structure and strengthening from the outset.

On the other hand it's not as easy as saying anyone can build at a Chinese yard and take the risks and rewards. You can subcontract build management to an external manager but you'd still want some in-house staff on hand. Three, four or five years with several senior officers and staff constantly on a different continent in a different time zone could place a huge burden on a smaller company. Stena Line can largely pass this side of things over to Stena Teknik and Stena RoRo and be sure the group's interests are being protected.

HHhmmmmm , if Stena Hollandica and Stena Superfast produced a lovechild I suspect it would look like this new design lol

It's not exactly a looker is it. I wonder if the squashed look, especially of the funnel, is to ensure clearance of the Älvsborg Bridge in Gothenburg.

Good news on the fleet order today, apparently usd $80 million per ship. Hopefully this will lead to the four options being taken up and deployed in the Stena Line route network.

Also the history of Stena Line / RoRo orders and shipyards is quite interesting, the last  order for Hollandica/Britannica ended up with the shipyard changing hands several times, the Spirit/Vision ended up much delayed and two hulls completed by the shipyard for Stena, one finished in Greece, other scrapped. The Danica/Jutlandica orders in early 80's much delayed.

However Adventurer/Britannica and Stena Transit/Transporter came through bang on time.


http://www.sjofartstidningen.se/stororder-fran-stena/

The list of shipyards which have gone bust building for Stena is fascinating - add to the above the Spanish yard which built the first variants of the Stena Forerunner class. I suspect it's a combination of Stena screwing inexperienced yards on price, having watertight contracts and then having a very savvy, experienced technical team who insist on everything being done to a high standard that the yards struggle to achieve within the price they've quoted.

I suspect that Discover Ferries must have adopted a similar view to me that Seatruck ferries is not aimed at your typical passengers like the other ferry companies

With respect, I don't think this was anything anyone ever thought was the case to begin with and didn't require research to conclude on. However, even if it is peripheral to the point of being barely measurable, they do accept tourist traffic.

Dover is definitely P&O's priority. They really seem manage every penny they get. One post I read indicates on the Darwins the promenade's are closed off, like on the Pride of Dover and Calais, naturally to keep passengers spending money in the duty free and food court. However they then blow £360 million on two new ships from STX - Aker Yards in Rauma! They could have gone to South Korea and got them significantly cheaper.

I do find the European Highlander & Causeway pretty good to be honest. Lounges are clean, with subtle blues, creams, greys etc.

To be honest I would imagine the chairs are the least of their worries! Especially if freight levels are poor.

Liverpool - Dublin is growing so P&O would be probably better focusing their energies on that route.

Theoretically if P&O bought Nord-Pas-De-Calais (1500 lane meters), at a cheap price, they could release European Causeway to the  Dublin. Add a few cabins / lengthen her to provide them & some extra car deck space, and they could have a nice 4th ship, which would be sailing at full capacity rather than half! I am not 100% sure of the trailer height on NPDC, but they might be able to make it work.

There are lots of reasons why price isn't the sole consideration when selecting a yard - operators also need to have faith in the shipyard to deliver. I did once hear that P&O's experience with Mitsubishi wasn't ideal (and they are a modern, experienced ferry yard) so going to even less developed yards might also have been perceived to carry a risk. Certainly for a ship operating for 20 years on an operation like Dover-Calais the build quality needs to be very high and very robust which is almost guaranteed from a Finnish or German yard, less so an Italian or far Eastern (excl Japan) one. A higher initial cost but lower maintenance costs in years 10-20 is perhaps a price worth paying. Even then the Spirits have had design issues.

You also have to factor in the difficulties with managing a build on the other side of the world - P&O don't have a building or technical division like Stena Teknik who can manage this for them, they'd be reliant on their existing staff which adds both cost and complexity and difficulties in dealing with a yard which perhaps isn't particularly experienced to begin with.

I think the Darwins' side promenades tend to be closed to avoid passengers disturbing crew sleeping in the adjacent cabins (there is/was a railing which prevents people from getting next to the windows but despite this these areas are not always open any more).

FWIW, I'd love to see NPC on the Irish sea but won't get my hopes up. Her headroom is 4.5m on both the main train deck and the upper freight deck (the latter being the covered section but you need to be able to drive through it).

I wonder, if it's true, what Stena's reported interest in the incomplete hull of the Viking ADCC might be. She has a freight deck with a separate car deck above and the only routes I can imagine in the Stena Line network which could even possibly justify an arrangement without twin freight decks might be Fishguard-Rosslare and Grenå-Varberg, possibly Trelleborg-Sassnitz.

She could be a project for Stena RoRo but it would be an uncharacteristic acquisition for them.

It's not entirely implausible that IF would be interested in one of those two vessels, but surely not as a like-for-like to replace Epsilon - about a 45% reduction in lane metres and a 70% increase in fuel consumption don't make initial sense; if they were to use one of them to effectively replace the Swift and part of the Epsilon's rota in one go they might do.

Either way, the Destination Gotland vessels would probably require a rebuild of the passenger spaces if they are to serve the Irish Sea. They are quite attractive in their own way on board, and I quite like them for their very calm, very quiet 'floating library' feel; others have described them as effectively 'floating buses'. Whilst the design is crisp and effective for the specific requirement of Gotland traffic, it is unusual for a conventional ferry. The pax capacity is 1,600 but there is accommodation for around 1,800 - being essentially 1,000 reclining seats, 300 berths and 500 seats in the central 'Food market' section. There is no bar as such save for a small area of open seating right at the stern. Either way, it would be very interesting indeed to see one of them on the Irish Sea.

DFDS have used the same interior designers as P&O used on the Spirits which is why they have that looks. It's a bit safe and bland unfortunately, at least in the pictures seen so far, and to my eyes not a patch on the original Berlioz outfit (Rodin less so).

For what it's worth, although I'm quite fond of them the Darwin twins were not really cutting edge when introduced. They were built on freighter hulls which were barely strong enough to carry the weight of the required superstructure so the plans had to be scaled down somewhat during the concept stage. Upstairs in their better parts they took cues from the earlier Rodin but without the expensive bits. In the less imaginative areas they just rehashed existing P&O ideas. The Club Lounges were and are by far their best feature. In some parts now they look rather shabby unfortunately.

P&O's financial statements are interesting and there's certainly no doubt they are struggling to make money on the Irish Sea. Whether they can easily turn this around is an interesting question.

Their heritage is fine, although as mentioned in the sphere of ferry operations it is largely the heritage of acquired companies and hardly compares to the historic achievements of the Stena group. But what are their strategies for the future? Does it rely on the economy continuing to turn around or will aggressive cost-saving and the cessation of some of the most grievously loss-making services do the trick? As with Stena at Fishguard, it's hard to see how some of the existing operations can at present stomach the heavy expenditure in replacement tonnage which may be required at some stage.

In my experience over recent years quite a few P&O ships have had some really terrible maintenance aspects to some parts of the public areas to the degree that it is evident there is cost-saving going on - the Larne ships seem to be the exception on this front. Like the livery thing, it betrays a remarkable lack of care of the management of the P&O Ferries brand. What impression grotty, poorly-maintained ships and a discordant identity has on people's perception of the company is impossible to quantify but it is a strategy that certainly raises eyebrows.

They could be running full but not making much money. Smaller ships able to make only half as many crossings as the Holyhead ones but charging lower rates doesn't sound like a particularly good starting point. They will have lower capital and some other costs but if they have to undercut the Holyhead operators to fill the ships it could still be a difficult market to be in.

Summer schedules have been announced and bookings taken for Superfasts XI and XII and it would be difficult, especially politically in relation to the XII operating a subsidised route, to withdraw them now.

A much better bet is the Bimini Superfast (Superfast VI) which has just been withdrawn from her previous service.