SEATRUCK PRECISION (ex STENA PRECISION / SEATRUCK PRECISION) imo: 9506239
SEATRUCK PRECISION is a RoRo freight ferry designed and built for Seatruck Ferries by Flensburger Schiffbau-Gesellschaft in Germany. She is one of four identical sister ships owned by Seatruck Ferries.
In strange waters #2: Stena Line Irish Sea dry docking’s/refits 2017.
This page will be continually updated throughout the refit period which is expected to run until May 2017. Last years “in strange waters” can be found here. Please note that due to the nature of their content, both pages are very heavy in photographic material and may take a while to load on slower connections. The second part of this year’s feature can be found here. This year Stena Line will complete all Irish Sea dry docking’s at Belfast’s Harland and Wolff shipyard, that’s a total of 9 ships from the fleet of 11. At the end of 2016 Stena announced that the entire fleet would be receiving the latest livery and strap-line “Connecting Europe for a Sustainable Future” during their scheduled dry docking’s, in a style similar to that applied to Stena Britannica recently. This replaces the previous “Making Good Time” strap-line. (Title image: Stena Europe in Rosslare displaying the ... Read more
PR: Stena Line Adds Extra Pre-Christmas Freight Capacity
Leading ferry company Stena Line is adding additional freight capacity to its busy Belfast-Liverpool service in support of the retail sector as it starts to ramp up for its key pre-Christmas trading period. Stena Line is adding an extra two sailings per week, from Fri 21St October until 16th Dec, it will operate an additional Friday departure from Belfast (15.30hrs) and from Monday 24th October until 19th December it will operate and additional Monday departure (08.00hrs) from Birkenhead, Liverpool. The extra sailings will provide increased freight capacity for up to 2 000 more freight units across the Irish Sea at a crucial time for businesses seeking to maximise their Christmas trade. Richard Horswill, Stena Line’s Head of Freight (UK and Ireland) said: “The extra sailings we have announced today represent an additional 25% capacity on our Belfast-Liverpool freight only service with departures times designed to optimise customer delivery schedules. Since we ... Read more
Stena add additional freight sailing between Belfast and Birkenhead?
Looking at the live timetable on the Stena Line freight website this evening, it appears that an extra sailing has been added on Friday afternoon between Belfast and Birkenhead, returning Monday morning ex Birkenhead at 08:00. How this will work in practice remains to be seen though, as with an 08:00 departure from Birkenhead Stena Performer would not be able to operate the 15:30 from Belfast as she would not be back in time. More if/when I hear it (as there has been nothing official from Stena), but I assume some sort of rotation will be worked out with the Heysham ships (Stena Precision and the smaller Stena Hibernia). Edit 18/10/17: Stena have officially announced these extra sailings which will add extra capacity in the run up to Christmas. At present it looks as if Stena Performer, Stena Precision, and Stena Hibernia will take it in turns to operate as the third ship ... Read more
A Look Inside: Stena Lagan visit, 2/11/15
Having been invited aboard by Senior Master, Captain Stephen Millar, I boarded the Stena Lagan on a bright November afternoon with my companion for the visit, Scott Mackey, passing a very full looking Stena Performer berthed at VT1. After introducing ourselves at the guest services desk in the lobby, we were escorted to the crew quarters by the Chief Officer in order to meet Captain Millar. After coffee in the tidy and modern looking crew mess area, we joined Captain Millar on the bridge. I am still taken aback by how spacious the bridges on these modern vessels are compared to the older generations! Captain Millar is certainly very knowledgeable and experienced, and was only too happy to talk about his experiences on his current ship and others. We spotted Stena Superfast VIII swinging off her berth at VT4, and having seen our attempts to take some photos through the ... Read more
Stena in Belfast – Celebrating 20 years of Stena Line operating from Belfast.
20th anniversary of Stena Line switching the historic Larne – Stranraer service to Belfast. Today marks 20 years from the last sailing of what was then Stena Sealink Line, into the Port of Larne from Scotland, with tomorrow the anniversary of the first Stena ferry sailing from Belfast. Few could have predicted at the time that 20 years, and 2 bespoke Belfast-Scotland terminals later, Stena Line would also offer services from Belfast to Birkenhead and Heysham, as well as operating a pair of 203 metre long ferries to Scotland from Belfast. Just six weeks after the switch, on the 31st December 1995, the “Sealink” name would disappear altogether with all UK operations being rebranded as “Stena Line”. Of course, things have also changed dramatically at Larne. No longer Northern Ireland’s premier ferry port, Stena’s rise at Belfast has been somewhat mirrored by P&O’s decline at Larne. The services to Fleetwood and ... Read more
Stena Line dry dock update
As of last weekend, four of Stena’s Irish Sea ships should have completed overhauls: Stena Performer, Stena Mersey, Stena Lagan and Stena Hibernia. Stena Hibernia had been expected to resume service to Liverpool (Birkenhead) at 15:00hrs on Monday, but is still at Harland & Wolff. Stena Precision is currently en-route from Birkenhead to Belfast so may well swap places with Hibernia after discharging in Belfast as she is the next vessel scheduled to visit Harland & Wolff. Stena Superfast VIII and then Stena Superfast VII are expected to visit Harland & Wolff in March with Stena Nordica providing cover on the North Channel service following being displaced on the Dublin – Holyhead route by Stena Superfast X. Of 7 ships a total of 6 have been/will be handled by Harland & Wolff – Stena Lagan being the exception as she went to A&P Falmouth in December as the H&W where busy handling ... Read more