Stena Line fleet movements

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

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giftgrub

The former Stena Feronia now Strait Feronia is on its way down under, currently off the coast of Portugal heading for Las Palmas. Images on the following link, have to scroll down the page.

https://www.facebook.com/bluebridgeferry

giftgrub

Malo Seaways back in Dunkirk Shipyard for further modification to fit the berths in Calais and Dover, the ugly cow catcher on the bow nicely hidden by the blue paint.

steven_shaw

Quote from: ferryfan on April 10, 2015, 03:02:31 PM
Superfast X yet more "technical difficulties" scheduled to move from berth 51 to ocean pier 37 this afternoons sailing and return leg from Holyhead at 8.10 cancelled. There were delays over the holiday weekend which left a lot of disgruntled passengers who complained more about the poor customer service than the delays. They really need to sort this out pretty quick as I sense that customers are already heading to Irish Ferries in large numbers (Swift numbers supposedly way up on Easter last year).

Good to see Irish ferries swift service getting extra passengers

Not everyone wants to be on the slow boat to china Superslow X

steven_shaw

Quote from: MerseyMan on April 12, 2015, 07:17:23 PM
Quote from: IFPete on April 10, 2015, 08:06:43 PM
I travelled on Both Superfast VIII and Superfast VII the weekend of the Ireland Scotland match.

As you can image the services  were very full and the staff did there best to cope,

coming back on Sunday evening from Cairnryan we loaded on the bottom deck of Superfast VII which had just come out of a compressed drydock,

The car deck was like a building site with hazardous chemicals and oil drums scattered around the car deck and not locked away in a secure fireproof area as you would normally expect.

There was no fireproof paint left on the car deck floor and there appeared that the car decks had not received any attention during the refit at H&W.

This ferry was a fire hazard and the word shipshape appears to be missing from the Stena vocabularly.

In all my years travelling with many ferry operators around the world i have never seen anything as bad. 

This falls down because the Northern Marine experiment has badly failed.

No suitable maintenance plan and no suitable tonnage to allow proper planned maintenance to be carried out.

I also noticed the ships forktruck powered by LPG which i felt was inapproapriate in a hazardous area. 

The problems with Superfast X are a simpton of this too.

Absolutely everything you have mentioned there is a failing of the ship board management, and nothing to do with Northern Marine. The loading officer should have stopped the operation to make the decks safe if it was in such a state. Blaming someone who isn't on the ship is just ridiculous. 

From what i've read, it is no experiment either. Seems like it is a measure that is here to stay and the sooner Stena Line realize it, the better for all of us passengers. I'm tired listening to them moan about Northern Marine. This whole "anti-NMM" thing is getting old.

The bottom line is that if the ships on board management think it is a fire hazard they have a responsibility to stop the boat and inform whomever is responsible for it ashore and stop everything until it is made safe.

northern marine ship management sounds to be at the heart of all the problems

will be more interested in lining their pockets with as much money as possible and 2 fingers to passengers

so your statement is wrong

giftgrub

As Northern Marine are a Stena company it's not a case of lining pockets, as they are paying themselves for the service provided.

http://www.nmm-stena.com/Pages/default.aspx

Does not excuse any of the reported issues though, should not have happened.

IFPete

April is the time to sort all these issues out before the May Bank Holiday weekends.

TC

I wouldn't be too hard on Superfast X. I travelled on her recently, and found her not bad. I talked to one of the engineers and he said there is plenty of 'Seafrance' documents and signage still floating about. In all fairness I found her a big improvement on the Nordica. The ship was a lot cleaner, and I personally thought the conversion was a good job all in all. Just a quick note - Wifi was down, apparently there were problems of some sort.

Crossing was very quiet, and most of the areas were closed off.

This may come as a shock to some, but on my return journey with P&O on the European Endeavour, there was more people, and cars on board, than on the Superfast sailing? For the record the tickets were around the same price, and the feeling I got was P&O are looking to expand the passenger section of their Irish Sea operations. Norbay has received the new P&O livery, and house flag.

Competition seems to be getting very interesting, and P&O's departure and arrival times, are proving attractive, with both freight and passengers.

To be honest, I agree with those of the opinion pensioning off the HSS without a proper replacement is a mistake. On the passenger side capacity isn't too bad (if all areas were open), but freight capacity seems too low, certainly no improvement there.

No dedicated express sailing will probably hurt Stena. A vessel like the P&O Express might not be a bad thing.

But, in terms of real change and a real improvement, and that 'wow' factor this 'new ship' certainly doesn't come anywhere close to that of P&O's Spirit of Britain, or Stena Britannica. Superfast X doesn't feel like something you would bother paying more for. The ship is grand enough, but doesn't have the 'wow' factor.

Was my experience dramatically different to P&O? Not really! Crew performance was about on the same level. But terminal facilities do need to be improved in Liverpool. The port was looking tired,  loadings were good in terms of freight, but cars also occupied much of the upper deck. One thing in Stena's favour is being RoRo. Lorry drivers seem to find reversing on P&O a pain in the a***, and in conversation they all reckoned P&O needed to invest in bigger, modern RoRo tonnage, and get Liverpool port modernised with twin level RoRo ramps.

The Liverpool route does appear in the dark ages, and hence Stena should take advantage of this, and grow the freight on the Holyhead route.

HSS

Quote from: TC on April 22, 2015, 02:13:11 PM
I wouldn't be too hard on Superfast X. I travelled on her recently, and found her not bad. I talked to one of the engineers and he said there is plenty of 'Seafrance' documents and signage still floating about. In all fairness I found her a big improvement on the Nordica. The ship was a lot cleaner, and I personally thought the conversion was a good job all in all. Just a quick note - Wifi was down, apparently there were problems of some sort.

Crossing was very quiet, and most of the areas were closed off.

This may come as a shock to some, but on my return journey with P&O on the European Endeavour, there was more people, and cars on board, than on the Superfast sailing? For the record the tickets were around the same price, and the feeling I got was P&O are looking to expand the passenger section of their Irish Sea operations. Norbay has received the new P&O livery, and house flag.

Competition seems to be getting very interesting, and P&O's departure and arrival times, are proving attractive, with both freight and passengers.

To be honest, I agree with those of the opinion pensioning off the HSS without a proper replacement is a mistake. On the passenger side capacity isn't too bad (if all areas were open), but freight capacity seems too low, certainly no improvement there.

No dedicated express sailing will probably hurt Stena. A vessel like the P&O Express might not be a bad thing.

But, in terms of real change and a real improvement, and that 'wow' factor this 'new ship' certainly doesn't come anywhere close to that of P&O's Spirit of Britain, or Stena Britannica. Superfast X doesn't feel like something you would bother paying more for. The ship is grand enough, but doesn't have the 'wow' factor.

Was my experience dramatically different to P&O? Not really! Crew performance was about on the same level. But terminal facilities do need to be improved in Liverpool. The port was looking tired,  loadings were good in terms of freight, but cars also occupied much of the upper deck. One thing in Stena's favour is being RoRo. Lorry drivers seem to find reversing on P&O a pain in the a***, and in conversation they all reckoned P&O needed to invest in bigger, modern RoRo tonnage, and get Liverpool port modernised with twin level RoRo ramps.

The Liverpool route does appear in the dark ages, and hence Stena should take advantage of this, and grow the freight on the Holyhead route.

Good post, I agree with you about Superfast X, I have been on a few times now and had no problems, she is bigger than Nordica but she is nothing special.

giftgrub

#1793
The Stena Scanrail is being replaced on the Gothenburg - Fredrickshaven route by the ASK (former Scandlines vessel).

http://www.sjofartstidningen.se/stena-scanrail-byts-ut/

The former Stena Feronia on its way down under, just off the coast of the Dominican Republic

http://www.marinetraffic.com/en/photos/of/ships/shipid:123382/ship_name:STENA%20FERONIA/order:date_uploaded/#forward

and video of its refurb before leaving for New Zealand

https://youtu.be/bpysSk9-BSg


TC

Anyone know what is going on with the Stena Alegra these days? AIS shows her berthed or laid up in Malaysia.

HSS

Good question, I thought she was staying with Interislander?

giftgrub

Quote from: TC on May 09, 2015, 01:18:08 PM
Anyone know what is going on with the Stena Alegra these days? AIS shows her berthed or laid up in Malaysia.

Currently in drydock in Singapore being refitted/rebuilt for service with Interislander in New Zealand.

HSS

Thats what I thought, long term too I believe?

giftgrub

Five year charter agreed between Stena RoRo and Interislander

http://www.kiwirail.co.nz/uploads/Publications/Stena%20Alegra%20backgrounder.pdf

Also the Trinacria and Partenope were handed back to Stena Ro Ro a few weeks ago by TTT Lines but have been rechartered to Baleria

Trinacria now Sicilia, Partenope now Napoles

some images on link below with TTT lines branding visible in the marble flooring

https://www.balearia.com/wps/portal/balearia/abordo/viajandoEnBarco/flotaAcomodacion/!ut/p/a1/04_Sj9CPykssy0xPLMnMz0vMAfGjzOLNLNzNDI2cDbz9Pc2NDBxNvILMLf0MDd2DjYAKIvEo8DckVX9goBlQgYuRt4mZm7GBkSll-g1MCOkP149CU4JpAliBAQ7gaIBhAmYY4LUC6Mng1Dx9L0JOLcgNDY0wyPTUdXVUBABrAWWA/?1dmy&page=balearia.prepara.enbarco.flota.detallebuque&urile=wcm%3apath%3a%2Fbalearia_es%2Fabordo%2Fviajandobarco%2Fflota%2Fsicilia%2F6596761c-3322-49fb-a88d-fdc43d03de7b

TTT Lines now seem to be in a joint venture with Caronte and Tourist as they have no vessels listed on their website

http://tttlines.info/eng/

Steven

Quote from: giftgrub on May 10, 2015, 10:44:45 PM
TTT Lines now seem to be in a joint venture with Caronte and Tourist as they have no vessels listed on their website

http://tttlines.info/eng/
This is to do with a dispute with the port in Messina.  Basically, C&T have gone in to partnership with Tomasso (TTT) and reduced their own route to a single ship. They have however stated that should they agree suitable terms with Messina, they will return their own route to two ships whilst also continuing the partnership.  It has been suggested in some parts of the Italian press that the second ship would be Epsilon, however I suggest this could just be people putting 2 and 2 together and getting 9!
Steve in Belfast (suburbia)

Flickr: www.flickr.com/tarbyonline