Direct Ferries to the Continent must be sailing by January - IRHA

Started by ccs, September 23, 2020, 06:22:54 PM

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ferryfan

The Kerry and Visby will be two of the ships on the route the Stena RoRo owned  Kerry was chartered by DFDS in November, MS Visby is owned by destination Gotland and between the island of Visby and Swedish mainland.
sources shippax and https://lemarin.ouest-france.fr/
edited!

ferryfan


marsav68

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-government-wants-direct-ferry-services-to-the-continent-brought-forward-1.4442729

There must be large numbers of continental drivers now stuck in the UK who might consider a reroute through Ireland. Not to mention the Irish drivers who were just passing through and now need a direct route.

ferryfan

Irish Ferries have announced the addition of the container vessel the mv Music (imo 9328053) to their Eucon fleet starting sailings on 1st January 2021. She will be operating a Dublin -Rotterdam service.

giftgrub

First of DFDS ferries - Kerry is on the way to Dunkerque from Klaipeda, Visby still alongside in Visby but should be leaving soon, Optima Seaways is either in drydock or alongside drydock in Klaipeda. (Hard to see on map)

giftgrub

Visby has departed on the way to Dunkerque next stop Skagen, presumably for Bunkers

giftgrub

Optima Seaways has finally departed Klaipeda on the way to Dunkerque, Visby is bunkering off Skagen and Kerry is in the North Sea.

giftgrub

Kerry and Optima Seaways have completed berthing trials in Dunkerque and are headed for Rosslare for berthing trials, Kerry due tomorrow morning and Optima Seaways on Wednesday morning, Visby has arrived in Dunkerque this evening and is expected into Rosslare for berthing trials before the weekend.

Obviously being Visentini vessels and the fact that Kerry sailed from Rosslare for BF there should be no issues with the first two, for the Visby it will be for shipspotters the first time a modern Destination Gotland vessel has been in this part of Europe and the first time since 1990 a ferry called Visby has arrived in Rosslare (the previous Visby being Sealinks Felicity)


giftgrub

https://www.dfds-news.com/featured/ireland-france-route-ready/?fbclid=IwAR0ltnBmqItmEGTb6Ubih5KO8mIpbkQPGC9-0o-RYKAWHzn_0wxPfXysizE

The three ships have arrived in Dunkerque for berth tests and supplies. First departure will be from Rosslare on 2 January.

DFDS? new route between Ireland and France is getting ready for its first departure. In just a few days, on 2 January at 14:00 (Ire time), a fully booked Optima Seaways will set sail towards Dunkerque ? only to be followed by an equally fully booked Kerry departing at 23:00 ex Rosslare on the same day, whilst Visby will depart from Dunkerque towards Rosslare at 23:00 CET.  Its all happening on Saturday.

Kerry arrived in Dunkerque on 27 December and both Visby and Optima Seaways on 28  December for berth tests and the obligatory EU-inspection, that is to ensure that the ships comply with EU regulation before they are allowed to start operating.

Optima Seaways and Kerry are currently en-route to Rosslare in preparation and standby.

In addition to this, the ships were busy taking on stores, with catering supplies for a DFDS branded service and other supplies needed.

Route Director Aidan Coffey has invited Irish TV and newsmagazines for Optima?s departure on Saturday and French and European TV and media for the arrival in Dunkerque on Sunday 3 January.

Due to Covid restrictions, in both Ireland and France, the launch will be a press only event.

Aidan is supported by the busy teams at Rosslare, Dunkerque and the Cork booking office in preparation for a successful launch.

The pictures show the ships after arrival in Dunkerque for inspection and provisions, some sent by Torben Carlsen CEO, who received the pictures of Visby from French photographer  Julien Carpentier, and some were sent to us by Aidan Coffey with the assistance of colleagues in Dunkerque. In the background you can also see DFDS? Dover-Dunkerque vessels in the port that has developed Dunkerque, into a true DFDS hub.

Image below of Optima Seways, Kerry off shore and Stena Foreteller behind Optima this morning in Rosslare.


Davy Jones

Is there enough standing room, port vehicles, staff etc at Rosslare to cover all this extra capacity? From what I have read they are more than doubling throughput virtually overnight.

giftgrub

Posted on Facebook by Kim Victor this morning

https://sverigesradio.se/artikel/7637835?fbclid=IwAR0AejQ0Lz-L8cOOFdgaNP2z2ItlRy6EgJ0QDQ149q_RSCY4FjgIiEMQ2TU

Sister ship to Visby, Drotten is to be chartered from Destination Gotland by DFDS for February and March, could be used to replace Optima Seaways on Rosslare route as it?s only been confirmed for January.

giftgrub

Quote from: Davy Jones on December 30, 2020, 03:46:56 PM
Is there enough standing room, port vehicles, staff etc at Rosslare to cover all this extra capacity? From what I have read they are more than doubling throughput virtually overnight.

Plenty of room and staff, when everything goes to plan, will be a learning process for all involved but they are more than capable as arrivals are staggered and departures fit in with existing schedules.

Road into the harbour at the top of the hill is breaking up badly, so next job will getting new tarmacadam laid during the quiet time.

ferryfan

Freight traffic on the Dublin Holyhead route has collapsed by between 60-70% since brexit according to Ian Davies of Stean Ports and both ferry firms are suffering. full interview with BBC Wales here
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-55565166

Niall

Freight traffic has also collapsed on the Fishgaurd and Pembroke routes

Trucker

Quote from: Steven on October 19, 2020, 03:44:19 PM
A few points on this discussion

Le Havre from a ferry operator point of view is further away than Cherbourg for not a lot of benefit but increased cost and reduced utilisation.  From a haulier point of view they are potentially paying a driver to sit on a ship longer when they could be overtaking the ship on the road.

Running a ship at a "steady 25 knots" is pretty much out of the question.  Most ships likely to be employed on such a service aren't even capable of 25 knots!  Rosslare - Dunkirk might make more sense for a CLdN style unaccompanied service.  Speaking of which, I'm not sure CLdN/Cobelfret have any intention of taking drivers again, particularly on the longer sectors such as Ireland to Europe.  They've briefed press about how their costs are lower as they don't carry drivers for example.

The supply of suitable vessels for freight orientated services isn't that good at present, its passenger vessels like Stena Saga and Pride of York which are "spare".  Running the more passenger orientated vessels, even with subsidy, is unlikely to be very profitable IMO.

Its not often mentioned, but at present Ireland - France is oversupplied already (hence Brittany Ferries freight orientated service to France being seasonal, and Stena being able to put less than ideal (and in the case of Vinga, smaller) vessels on their Cherbourg route if Horizon is required elsewhere.  The most logical option to increase capacity would be Stena doubling frequency to Cherbourg, something that wouldn't be that hard to do considering they have ships which appear to be spare.  One of Flavia or Scottish Viking should be spare in January, and Stena Vinga is obviously already surplus to requirements anyway.  Hence her little excursion to our waters.  Its also a fact that a significant amount of landbridge traffic originates or is destined for Northern Ireland - for that it may be more attractive to use landbridge from Belfast, Larne, Warrenpoint and the North Sea.


Quote from: Paul747 on October 08, 2020, 10:27:33 AM
A senior Stena crew member hinted to me that there is the ?potential? for Stena to move one of the Dublin Holyhead ships to Rosslare for a direct continental service IF in the event of a no deal brexit departure, demand reduces on the central corridor? Supposing Stena receive 25% of the annual 170000 annual land bridge units transiting through Holyhead, it would mean circa 800 units a week looking to avoid the grid locked UK landbridge. That could potentially support a 2000m+ lane metre ship on a three times a week service? Lot of what if?s and the biggest is obtaining support from the hauliers as it is a more time consuming crossing than is currently available. Un accompanied units are the more likely customers for this potential market, so a large RO Pax ship would not be cost efficient for any potential new route. Also which ever continental port is assessed it would need at least a 100+ trailer park to accommodate this potential traffic.
There are 150,000 annual movements and that is for both directions (official figures).  Thats of around 450,000 total RoRo movements though Holyhead (the landbridge figure naturally doesn't account for trailers which stop and discharge or load partially in GB en-route of course).  Thats not as much as it sounds if we account for the fact that there is existing excess capacity on Ireland-France (some say its running at around 50%), and that not everything will be suitable to transit on the direct routes.  Rates are going to be a big factor as well - they'll inevitably be much higher on the direct routes than short sea. Of course, Calais and Portsmouth aren't the only ports used for landbridge via Holyhead either.  Dropping a ship on Dublin - Holyhead would massively reduce their capacity there, by at least 6,200 lane metres in each direction per day. 
Another point of note, for a lot of traffic which uses landbridge France isn't the ultimate destination.  Perhaps there will be increased demand for landbridge to the "Low Countries" rather than France, particularly if a scheme is agreed where trailers can pass through the UK more or less unobstructed if sealed and the appropriate paperwork is already forwarded as has been suggested.

Personally IF the worst case scenario happens I can see a combination of an increased use of North Sea (already happening), switch to unaccompanied direct services to Europe, and LoLo services.  CLdN are banking on the middle option and ICG will certainly like the last one!
25 knots seems to be no isue to Mv Visby at the moment ,indeed up to 28 knots today, completing Dunkerque to Rosslare in 19 hrs 30 minutes.
I have been on Drotten and Visby ,2 very fine ships ,and very capable of high speed in rough conditions.