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Welcome to shipNEWS by Jehan Ashmore

HSS Stena Explorer arrives at Dun laoghaire on the 08.55hrs sailing from Holyhead on 10 April 2006. Photo:© Jehan Ashmore / shipSNAPS Visit the shipSNAPS web-gallery

Horsepower Celebrations -HSS 10th Anniversary Having transported this year's Aintree Grand National winner, Numbersixvalverde, back to Dun Laoghaire in early April, Stena Line celebrated the 10th anniversary of fast-ferry services on the Holyhead route, on 10 April.

When launched in 1996, the HSS Stena Explorer was the world's largest multi-purpose fast-ferry. The craft is powered by four water-jets, which produce 100,000 horsepower allowing the catamaran to reach up to 40 knots across the 56-nautical mile route. The HSS has crossed the Irish Sea 25,000 times and has carried 12 million passengers.

Since its introduction, the service marketed as the HSS (High-Speed Service) has radically reduced passage times from over three hours down to 99 minutes across the Irish Sea. This led to the direct replacement of the conventional ferry, the Danish built Stena Adventurer, more familiar known as St. Columba, when placed on the route in 1977.

The Stena Explorer was built in at Rauma, Finland at a cost of £65m and can carry 1,500 passengers and 375 cars. In addition it is capable of handling coaches, large trucks and articulated lorries.

Onboard her single passenger deck, spread approximately over the size of a football pitch, the fast-ferry was first to offer a fast-food outlet on the Irish Sea.

But the HSS in recent years has become increasingly expensive to operate with rising fuel costs and a decline in traffic largely through competition from low-cost air fares. In March, Stena Line announced that a reduced sailing schedule was to be implemented in an effort to stave off operating costs. From 2 May, a revived timetable of two return daily crossings are operated between Mondays and Thursdays but retaining an additional return sailing for the remainder of the week, throughout the summer until September.

In an agreement signed in 2004, between Stena Line and the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company, the ferry operator will continue to serve the harbour until 2011. Currently Stena is the sole commercial user of the harbour.

The Stena HSS was delayed by nearly two months prior to entering service as her pioneering technology and life-saving equipment was subjected to extensive safety trials by both the Irish and UK marine authorities. In subsequent years the craft was subject to speed restrictions imposed when the HSS arrived and departed both her ferryports which remain in practice. It was discovered that the swell or after-wash generated from the craft's engines endangered swimmers or those on the waters edge adjacent to the ferryport's shores.

The Stena Explorer was also the first the first of a trio of HSS craft ordered by her Swedish owners when positioned on the Irish Sea service. In the same year the second craft was placed on the Belfast to Stranraer route and in 1997, the final craft was introduced on the company's English-Dutch route.
Stena Set for Second Freight Ferry

From July, the Dublin to Holyhead route on which Stena Line operate is to gain additional freight capacity with the introduction of the Stena Seatrader, which will join a s a running mate to the Ro-Pax Stena Asventurer.

The route posted the biggest increase in freight levels last year for Stena Line with freight rising to 173,000 vehicles. To capture this market share using the capital port, the second ship will offer an extra daily round trip, departing Dublin at 15.15hrs and returning from Holyhead at 22.00hrs. In total the route will provide six return sailing's to cater for the boom in trade on the central corridor route.

The 'Seatrader' was built in 1973 as a Scandinavian train-ferry, later the vessel served on the North Sea in tandem with the Dutch HSS route to Harwich and up until its Irish Sea debut, currently operates on a freight-only route from Killingholme to The Netherlands.

Stena's Dublin route to Holyhead opened in November 1995 in direct competition to Irish Ferries. The route was primarily launched as a freight-only service with the Norwegian built Ro-Pax Stena Traveller and since has been subsequently served by a succession of vessels to include the Stena Challenger, Stena Forwarder. In 2004 the present incumbent, the 44,000gt Stena Adventurer entered service and at 211m in length, the vessel is the longest ferry on the Irish Sea.

Throughout a decade of Stena service other vessels have plied the route albeit to cover short spells, the vessels where the Stena Invicta (the Scandinavian company's sister ship the Stena Nautica) was chartered to B&I Line as their first 'superferry' and renamed Isle of Inishfree (I) firstly out of Rosslare and then from Dublin. Another vessel to serve Holyhead was the Korean-built Stena Transporter.

It was not untill the launch of the Stena Adventurer in 2004 that the route provided a 'cruiseferry' service to match rivals Irish Ferries on a more level footing. But the service still does not cater for 'foot' passengers due to the lack of appropriate port infrastructure at Dublin (ie. no gangways). During the annual refit of the HSS Stena Explorer and the cancellation of HSS sailings due to bad weather, only then are 'foot' passengers taken onboard the 'Adventurer' using a bus driven on and off the vehicle deck.

A predecessor to Stena Line on the same Irish Sea route was Sealink/ British Rail who had provided their 'Freightliner' service (Lo/Lo/ container) to Holyhead until its closure in 1989. Not since then has there been a conventional two-ship service on the route. Irish Ferries use the cruiseferry, Ulysees and fast-ferry craft Jonathan Swift on their service to Holyhead. The 'Freightliner' route was run using the Cork Verolme Dock built sister-ships Brian Boroime and Rhodri Mawr, these vessels also sailed on an alternate schedule from the Walsh port to Belfast.

The former Freightliner container terminal at Holyhead, is now occupied by the HSS berth and ferryport building and the Dublion terminal is now in use for Norfolkline with their daily passenger and freight service to Liverpool and freight-only route to Heysham.

Nationwide Fishermen's Day of Protest (3 February 2006)
An 'Irish' armada! Protesting fishing trawlers led by the 'Supertrawler' Western Endeavour in the fairway channel of Dublin Port proceed upriver to the city centre quays on 3 February 2006.

Photo: © Jehan Ashmore

A fleet of over 50 protesting trawlers, mostly 'Supertrawlers' based at Killybegs descended overnight to arrive at Dublin port on 3 February. The impressive fleet worth a combined €350m included the Atlantic Challenge, the largest vessel participating berthed at Sir John Rogersons Quay in protest over a controversial Fisheries Bill.

The new bill would impose harsher penalties to illegal fishing infringements and would be recognised under criminal law. The prosecution of fishermen under such legislation was at the centre of the protest, unlike most other EU-member states, an administration system is applied instead.

In addition to the Dublin rally, similarly sized protests where held the same day in Galway, Cork and Waterford. Over 200 vessels joined in the rallies in which the leading fishing organisations took part together for the first time.

The Visit of a Queen Queen Mary 2 at anchor in Waterford Estuary, off Dunmore East on 17 June 2005. Photo: © Jehan Ashmore/shipSNAPS

The world's largest liner the Queen Mary 2 anchored off Dunmore East, Co. Waterford on 17 June 2005, marking the inaugural visit of the 150,000 tonnes liner to Irish shores.

Despite the hazy conditions throughout the day, interspersed with occasional afternoon spells of sunshine, large crowds flocked upon the south-eastern fishing harbour to witness the historic visit. The giant liner appeared somewhat ghostly through the sea mist as she lay offshore about a mile in a choppy swell.
Queen Mary 2 had arrived overnight on a passage from her homeport of Southhampton and was a nine-day cruise of British, Irish and Baltic state ports.

Built at a cost of €549m, the Cunard Line ship is the most expensive passenger liner ever. The Queen Mary 2 is the only true 'liner' operating in the world today. The QM2 is the only ship providing a scheduled trans-Atlantic service between Southampton and New York. In addition to this role, the QM2 offers worldwide cruising.

Her predecessor, the Queen Elizabeth 2 or more frequently referred to as the 'QE2', continues sailing but only in a 'cruise ship' capacity. Queen Mary 2's construction cost is reflected by the sheer size of the vessel-she is 148,528 tonnes compared to the QE2 at 70,327 tonnes.

The QM2 is a ship of superlatives, the liner can carry 2,620 passengers and a crew of over 1,200 on a vessel that is the also the longest, tallest and widest of any passenger liner built. The luxury liner has private balconies for nearly 80 per cent of cabins and has an art collection worth £3.5m. To complement these works of art there is the first 'floating planetarium', the largest library at sea, boasting 8,000 hardbacks and also the largest ballroom to grace a ship at on the oceans.

Queen Mary 2's first visit to Ireland was somewhat poignant as the liner was short-listed to be built in Belfast at the Harland & Wolff shipyard, but the contract went to Chantiers d'Atlantique, St. Nazaire on the west coast of France.

Cunard Line is part of the Miami-based Carnival Corporation, which owns other prestigious cruise brand names to include Princess Cruises.

This company signed a deal with the Dublin Port Company in 2004 and was launched with a flag-showing publicity visit to Dublin in August 2004 by the Grand Princess. This was the first visit to the capital by a cruise-ship that exceeded 100,000 tonnes, the Princess Cruises ship was eclipsed a year later by her sister-ships in terms of size. In total 11 such cruise calls by Princess Cruises were made in the deal agreed with the port company using three cruise-ships, the Golden Princess, Star Princess and the smaller 70,000 tonnes Sea Princess.