Stena Line fleet movements

Started by Collision-course, October 12, 2008, 04:54:51 PM

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marsav68

Quote from: scomac on May 04, 2023, 07:50:32 PM
Quote from: scomac on May 03, 2023, 01:44:40 PM
Quote from: scomac on April 29, 2023, 09:23:35 PMAccording to the Stena Line live freight timetable, STENA SUPERFAST VII is due back in service with a 2300hrs departure from Belfast this Tuesday, 2nd May.

STENA SUPERFAST VIII's 1930hrs departure on Tuesday from Loch Ryan Port has been rescheduled to 2030hrs. After arrival and discharge in Belfast, she will proceed to the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead for her own dry docking.

Currently, STENA NORDICA's final sailing on the North Channel is at 2330hrs on Saturday 20th May, after which she is due to proceed to the North Sea to provide cover initially for STENA TRANSIT between Killingholme and Hoek can Holland from 23rd May. Further cover on the North Sea is expected, after which it is believed she will release STENA ESTRID for refit before taking up permanent service at Fishguard in place of STENA EUROPE on the Rosslare link in July.

STENA SUPERFAST VIII resumes service after her refit with a departure from Loch Ryan Port at 0700hrs on Sunday 21st May.

The Superfast vessels will return to service equipped with pet lounges on deck 7, in the area formerly occupied by the gaming arcade. They will also boast enlarged Stena Plus lounges.

Further to this, STENA SUPERFAST VII is still in dry dock at Cammell Laird, Birkenhead. Stena Line's live freight timetable currently shows her resuming service at 0330 ex Loch Ryan Port on Friday morning.

Another update... this keeps getting pushed back. STENA SUPERFAST VII is now on the timetable to resume service at 1130 from Loch Ryan Port tomorrow.

It has arrived in Loch Ryan now.

ferryfan


scomac

STENA SUPERFAST VIII resumed service following refit at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead with a delayed 2330hrs departure from Belfast to Cairnryan last night.

This released STENA NORDICA to depart the Irish Sea and proceed to Hoek van Holland to cover for the refit of STENA TRANSIT on the Killingholme route. Following that, she is scheduled to cover for STENA FORERUNNER between Rotterdam and Harwich, according to the Stena Line live freight timetable.

She is then expected to cover at Holyhead for STENA ESTRID before moving to her new home on the Rosslare Europort to Fishguard route in place of STENA EUROPE during July.

Ferriesbetterfastercheape

I am wondering how his shall works with the small Stena Nordica on the Fishguard-route.
Stena has here massive downsized the max-capacity from circa 2000 on Stena Felicity - over Stena Europe with more than 1400 to only 630 now on Stena Nordica.

But this 630 is just theoretic only, if you count all tables onboard it will be around 90 only.
(Excluding driver-areas and areas where extra fee is needed)
So in fact this ferry is full with ca. 90 cars or Campers onboard and 0 foot-passengers, 0 bicycles, 0 motorbikes and 0 coaches.

If you "fake-book" on the Stena website already now many days in july and some days in aug. and june are full-booked with Pax. So there are now already 1400 people booked on Stena Europe.

Stena has forgotten and underestimated here 2 points:
- Ireland is a booming holiday-destination in many countries, f.ex. in Germany. The Irish Touristboard is awaiting every year ca. 50.000 more tourists than every year before (2019 750.000, 2020-22 Covid, 2023 800.000, 2024 850.000 etc.) - just only from Germany which is the biggest market after UK (and USA) tourists. And the shortest route from Dover to the holiday-cottages, hotels and house-boats in Ireland is via Rosslare.

- Espcially in this year a not small number of Irish Ferries Pembroke customers has booked Stena from Fishguard instead because long time bookings was not possible (in jan./Febr. ca.) for the Pembroke route in summer - and later it was possible, but with an unknown ship. So every normal family-father or mother will book better the old big Stena Europe then - instead of a theoretic thinkable old poor freighter. The Oscar Wilde is a much better very comfortable big ferry - but outside of "ferry-expert-circles" as here in the forum nobody else knows until today that this ferry will operate in summer on the Pembroke-route. Because Irish Ferries is extrem slowly with updates on their websites. 
So the result is: Much more bookings as normal for Stena and less bookings as normal for Irish Ferries on the South Channel this year.

And as summary - Stena is using with the Stena Nordica a much too small ship on the Fishguard-route. If the change from Europe to Nordica will really be in july... .

IFPete

Irish Ferries were fined a number of years ago for taking bookings for WB Yeats and then not being able to fulfill the bookings due to her late arrival. They will not officially Add Oscar Wilde to the booking engine until she and her crew pass all regulatory checks.

scomac

#3245
Quote from: Ferriesbetterfastercheape on May 24, 2023, 04:41:25 PMI am wondering how his shall works with the small Stena Nordica on the Fishguard-route.
Stena has here massive downsized the max-capacity from circa 2000 on Stena Felicity - over Stena Europe with more than 1400 to only 630 now on Stena Nordica.

But this 630 is just theoretic only, if you count all tables onboard it will be around 90 only.
(Excluding driver-areas and areas where extra fee is needed)
So in fact this ferry is full with ca. 90 cars or Campers onboard and 0 foot-passengers, 0 bicycles, 0 motorbikes and 0 coaches.

If you "fake-book" on the Stena website already now many days in july and some days in aug. and june are full-booked with Pax. So there are now already 1400 people booked on Stena Europe.

Stena has forgotten and underestimated here 2 points:
- Ireland is a booming holiday-destination in many countries, f.ex. in Germany. The Irish Touristboard is awaiting every year ca. 50.000 more tourists than every year before (2019 750.000, 2020-22 Covid, 2023 800.000, 2024 850.000 etc.) - just only from Germany which is the biggest market after UK (and USA) tourists. And the shortest route from Dover to the holiday-cottages, hotels and house-boats in Ireland is via Rosslare.

- Espcially in this year a not small number of Irish Ferries Pembroke customers has booked Stena from Fishguard instead because long time bookings was not possible (in jan./Febr. ca.) for the Pembroke route in summer - and later it was possible, but with an unknown ship. So every normal family-father or mother will book better the old big Stena Europe then - instead of a theoretic thinkable old poor freighter. The Oscar Wilde is a much better very comfortable big ferry - but outside of "ferry-expert-circles" as here in the forum nobody else knows until today that this ferry will operate in summer on the Pembroke-route. Because Irish Ferries is extrem slowly with updates on their websites. 
So the result is: Much more bookings as normal for Stena and less bookings as normal for Irish Ferries on the South Channel this year.

And as summary - Stena is using with the Stena Nordica a much too small ship on the Fishguard-route. If the change from Europe to Nordica will really be in july... .

Knowing that STENA NORDICA will be on the route during July means that booking numbers taken will be based on the capacity of that ship and not STENA EUROPE.

This is despite the fact it still states the Europe on the online booking engine. The Nordica has to cover for 3 more ships before she arrives at Fishguard and these things can be subject to unforeseen delays. That said, there will be a definitive date they are working towards but they aren't in a position to make it public yet due to the possibility of some of those unforeseen delays.

There is no way they'll have taken bookings for up to 1,386 people on sailings that could or will change to a ship that can carry 629.

Ferriesbetterfastercheape

IRISH FERRIES:
Yes - the FSG delivery-delays... . Ok, better to loose many bookings than to pay eventually high fees... . So we can forget the 2023 figures from the Pembroke-route, to see, if the Oscar Wilde is too big, too small or right is not possible before the year 2024.
--------------------------------------------
STENA NORDICA / EUROPE:
For me it is a little bit unclear how it should work:
When i "fake-book" "my fake-group" of 225 Pax + 1 motorhome + 1 hometrailer on the swedish Stena-site - then many days in summer the night-dep. from Fishguard is possible - but the 13:00/14:00 dep. is full-booked already now on many days.
Possible to book today are only these day-departures: 3.june, 11.june, 17.june, 21.june, 25.june, 26.june, 28.june, 3.july, 4.july, 5.july, 6.july, 8.july, 9.july, 20.july, 3.aug., 9.aug., 10.aug., 15.aug., 16.aug., 17.aug. and from 20.aug. is still possible daily (in august most tourists are travelling home to Europe). The number of bookable days will be also smaller and smaller, 2 weeks ago only 4.june and last july-week was full.

So for me all this means that on the (nearly) "full-booked" departures are already now CIRCA 1200 Pax booked OR that there is no space anymore for 1 motor-home.
So a change to the much smaller Nordica is not possible before end aug. or sept. ???
Would be also logical because only very few people will book an unknown ferry from Irish Ferries and in jan./febr./march it was generally not possible to book the Pembroke-route. So all early-bookers was forced to book Stena Europe instead Irish Ferries in summer.

Similar from Holyhead - most dep. are still to book - but f.ex. 4.june afternoon Estrid is full (because of fans returning from the FA Cup-final in London to Ireland, this day was full from Fishguard since many weeks). So this means minimum 700 Pax are booked because my booking is not possible on Stena Estrid - but on Adventurer and Estrid other days it is possible. (Estrid max. is 927 Pax)

Just for info: I can go on the not full-booked days until to fill in the number of credit-card - so the booking-system works - no error. Costs one-way ca. 80.000 Swedish Krones.


 

scomac

#3247
The reality is that there will be a cap on the capacity for sailings that are currently planned to be taken over by Nordica - this is why they are showing as sold out at this stage, especially daytime sailings at the summer peak.

Ferriesbetterfastercheape

Okeeeey - mhmmmm - i don`t want to annoying - but i am surprised that only i notice it ?
In my opinion the Nordica is much too small for this route (already in the last weeks in North Channel she was often full-booked) in summer - at least this year when many people don`t book this route with Irish Ferries.

Again tried to book now between 40 and 90 Pax only all days next week on the Stena-site.
As foot-pax, with 1 car or with 1 motor-home.
Most days only a few free places onboard at the 13:00 dep. - f.ex. one day 40 Pax is possible, but 60 is shown full-booked - or other day 40 and 60 is possible - but 80 is full-booked.

So if still the Europe is in the booking-engine, more than 1300 Pax are already onboard.
And if already now next week the Nordica is in the booking-engine (???) - but with name "Europe" - than more than 540 Pax are already onboard.

Would make sense also with many bookings - this weekend is the start of more than 40% of all Germans "Pentecost-school-holidays" (mostly for 2 weeks), Germans are the biggest group travelling to Ireland (behind UK and USA) and Ireland is booming in Germany as destination and from Munich f.ex. it takes 3, 4 days time to travel to Fishguard via Dover and Stonehenge... so they will be in Fishguard during next week.

But maybe someone here is living nearby Rosslare, has nothing to do and can observe in Rosslare port a little bit arriving ferries... ? Then we would have a report how full (or empty) the ferries are really and with which kind of travellers (coaches, cars, motor-homes, bicycles etc.) and from which countries mostly... .

scomac

All I can say is that I have worked in the ferry industry for many years and spent a long time working for Stena Line. They will not take bookings for more than a ship can accommodate. So, if they know (but haven't made public yet) when they plan to have Nordica take over from Europe, they will not book more passengers than Nordica can accommodate.

Fishguard-Rosslare is not a busy route. The capacity of Nordica will more than suffice for the vast majority of the year. Stena Line know what they are doing and will have done their homework by placing Nordica on the route as permanent ship.

giftgrub

#3250
Stena Europe is on one of its once legendary Wexford bay cruises, looks like it was unable to dock in Rosslare this evening, windy in the Rosslare area today (good drying day according to my mother !), assuming they are waiting for winds to drop.

Unfortunately could be one of the last times this will happen as the early July switch with the Stena Nordica fast approaches.


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boathansm

Quote from: giftgrub on June 07, 2023, 10:49:17 PMUnfortunately could be one of the last times this will happen as the early July switch with the Stena Nordica fast approaches.


Stena Nordica is scheduled at Dublin-Holyhead until 11 july.

scomac

Quote from: giftgrub on June 07, 2023, 10:49:17 PMStena Europe is on one of its once legendary Wexford bay cruises, looks like it was unable to dock in Rosslare this evening, windy in the Rosslare area today (good drying day according to my mother !), assuming they are waiting for winds to drop.

Unfortunately could be one of the last times this will happen as the early July switch with the Stena Nordica fast approaches.



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STENA EUROPE was experiencing technical difficulties resulting in a 14 hour crossing from Fishguard when she couldn't dock in Rosslare yesterday evening.

scomac

Quote from: boathansm on June 08, 2023, 06:17:27 AM
Quote from: giftgrub on June 07, 2023, 10:49:17 PMUnfortunately could be one of the last times this will happen as the early July switch with the Stena Nordica fast approaches.


Stena Nordica is scheduled at Dublin-Holyhead until 11 july.

She will then proceed to take up service between Rosslare and Fishguard. Expect that to be soon after she finishes at Holyhead, probably a couple of days or so later.

Ncol

Anyone know what the technical fault was?