End of February ’19 News Roundup

ULYSSES in dry dock at Cammell Laird Birkenhead, 2019. Irish Ferries

A quick summary of some ferry news stories from February not yet reported on NI Ferry Site including some dry docking updates and news from the Carlingford Lough and Lough Foyle services.

Ulysses goes to dry-dock, but W.B. Yeats is still not in service

ULYSSES approaches the entrance to Belfast Dry Dock (BDD) on June 28th 2018. Copyright © Scott Mackey.

Irish Ferries ULYSSES entered dry-dock at Cammell-Laird Birkenhead this evening having been replaced on the timetable by the Visentini Ro-Pax EPSILON this morning. It had been widely expected that W.B. YEATS, which was delivered just before Christmas, would be in service to release ULYSSES, but it appears the new vessel is still not ready. This is despite Irish Ferries previously stating that she would be in service in “early January”. ULYSSES had actually been expected to go to dry-dock over a week ago, with the delay seemingly to have been to wait until W.B. YEATS was in service to provide more capacity. As the new vessel is not available, veteran cruise-ferry OSCAR WILDE has remained on the Dublin to Holyhead route on the secondary schedule with her planned sailing to France this evening cancelled. This means that there has been a significant cut in freight capacity on the Holyhead route … Read more