Holyhead Port Closure Until January 15

[LNW-GW Joint]

Stena Ports, who operate Holyhead Port, has announced the port will remain closed to ferry traffic (Stena and Irish Ferries) until at least January 15.
This follows damage to the berth at Terminal 3 during storm Darragh on December 6 and 7.
The usual Holyhead-Dublin ferries are working on alternative and longer routes which will impact many passenger and freight journeys, especially over the Christmas/New Year holiday period, traditionally a peak season for Anglo-Irish traffic.
The alternative routes from Dublin include Birkenhead, Heysham, Fishguard and Pembroke Dock, and even Cherbourg in France.

Information on the extent of the port damage has been hard to come by, apparently needing underwater surveys to clarify, in difficult conditions.
I'm also not clear why both Stena and Irish Ferries terminals are stopped when the damage was said to be to the Irish Ferries terminal 3 (by the ferry Ulysses).

MSN

The main ferry connection between Great Britain and Ireland will remain closed until 15 January at the earliest, after the port of Holyhead suffered damage during a storm earlier this month.
The weeks-long shutdown of the link between Holyhead and Dublin will wreck the plans of tens of thousands of Christmas travellers hoping to cross the Irish Sea by ferry, as well as disrupting the supply chain of goods across the Irish Sea.
A spokesperson for Holyhead Port said: “We are now able to provide an update on the current closure of the Terminal 3 and Terminal 5 ferry berths at Holyhead Port.
“Regrettably, both terminals will need to remain closed until Wednesday 15 January 2025 at the earliest. Our current priority is to establish when Terminal 5 can be re-opened safely, to resume ferry services.
“This follows two incidents affecting the Terminal 3 berth on Friday 6 December and Saturday 7 December, resulting in part of the structure collapsing and rendering it unusable.
“Whilst we are still assessing the full extent of the damage, we are taking the decision now to keep the ferry berths closed until 15 January at the earliest to provide certainty for passengers, freight customers and ferry operators and allow them to make alternative arrangements ahead of one of the busiest times of the year.
...
Sailings from Birkenhead to Dublin continue, as do the southern routes between Pembroke and Fishguard in southwest Wales and the Irish port of Rosslare.
A new link has been added from Fishguard to Dublin, but this takes twice as long as the ferry from Holyhead.
A spokesperson for Stena Line said: “Stena Line is offering sailings for passengers and freight from Dublin to ports in Birkenhead and Fishguard. In addition, a new freight route from Dublin to Heysham has been added to assist continuity of trade flows. The company has also added additional sailings on the Belfast-Cairnryan route this weekend. Currently there is limited availability on the Belfast-Liverpool and Rosslare-Fishguard routes.

 

[Llanigraham]

From the photos I have seen one of the "dollies" that come off the main berthing pier to guide the ferries in has been completely removed and is lying in the water, potentially in the way of the berth, so I suspect that all the other "dollies" have to be inspected as well, for both companies. Hence the joint delays.

 

[chiltern trev]

Dublin Heysham is using the chartered in Steam Packet Ben-My-Chree in freight only mode.

 

[poffle]

Stena are running the Estrid Dublin - Birkenhead and the Adventurer Dublin - Fishguard. Irish Ferries have moved a bigger ferry to Rosslare - Pembroke and have moved the Ulysses to Ireland - France to try to take some land bridge traffic directly from France bypassing GB.

My understanding is that Birkenhead isn't setup for UK Border Control so I don't think they're taking foot passengers. Fishguard and Pembroke Dock have much less land transport infrastructure than Holyhead and are further from the big UK distribution centres in the Midlands and North of England

The week before and after Christmas will have lots of car and foot passengers crossing the Irish sea to spend time with friends and family.

After that the passenger traffic would be quiet until mid term breaks.

 

[berneyarms]

The Isle of Innisfree is currently heading to Fishguard for berthing trials.

 

[43055]

The Isle of Innisfree is currently heading to Fishguard for berthing trials.

Reported elsewhere that she didn't fit.

 

[berneyarms]

Reported elsewhere that she didn't fit.

Well that appears to be incorrect as Irish Ferries have announced that they are launching Dublin-Fishguard from tomorrow.

 

[185143]

Stena are running the Estrid Dublin - Birkenhead and the Adventurer Dublin - Fishguard. Irish Ferries have moved a bigger ferry to Rosslare - Pembroke and have moved the Ulysses to Ireland - France to try to take some land bridge traffic directly from France bypassing GB.

My understanding is that Birkenhead isn't setup for UK Border Control so I don't think they're taking foot passengers. Fishguard and Pembroke Dock have much less land transport infrastructure than Holyhead and are further from the big UK distribution centres in the Midlands and North of England

The week before and after Christmas will have lots of car and foot passengers crossing the Irish sea to spend time with friends and family.

After that the passenger traffic would be quiet until mid term breaks.

It isn't, but if they're taking vehicle passengers that seems like an easy excuse to be honest.

That said, I've been asked for ID by Merseyside (I presume?) Police on arrival at Birkenhead before, much in the same way I have on arrival at Holyhead by the Heddlu. And that doesn't happen every time either. Admittedly the majority of times you do get asked but still.

 

[Cloud Strife]

My understanding is that Birkenhead isn't setup for UK Border Control so I don't think they're taking foot passengers.

This is pretty much a non-issue, because they only need to have someone asking people "anything to declare?" on arrival. The UK doesn't do immigration checks from the RoI, just spot checks, so they only need a desk that they can call people over to if needs be, and it's more than likely already there, just as it is at other places like Stansted. Even on internal GB-NI routes, there will be some infrastructure in place for controlling people, harking back to the days of The Troubles.

It's more likely that they simply don't want to take foot passengers for whatever reason.

I'm also not clear why both Stena and Irish Ferries terminals are stopped when the damage was said to be to the Irish Ferries terminal 3 (by the ferry Ulysses).

It seems that the whole situation is quite murky. Irish Ferries are denying that they had anything to do with it, but there's a lot of speculation that Terminal 3 was damaged by Irish Ferries previously, and then Darragh caused the second round of damage. Terminals 3 and 5 have linked walkways, so it's possible that they suspect that there's damage to Terminal 5 too and that the entire thing has to be inspected. There's also allegedly a video showing Irish Ferries wiping out their berth, so certainly interesting!

Well that appears to be incorrect as Irish Ferries have announced that they are launching Dublin-Fishguard from tomorrow.

Yes, the second attempt at berthing was successful. Whether Fishguard can cope with all the traffic is another question.

Having said this, this situation really exposes the fragility of the Irish Sea links. Holyhead really should have a third linkspan available at the old HSS berth,

 

[poffle]

This is pretty much a non-issue, because they only need to have someone asking people "anything to declare?" on arrival. The UK doesn't do immigration checks from the RoI, just spot checks, so they only need a desk that they can call people over to if needs be, and it's more than likely already there, just as it is at other places like Stansted. Even on internal GB-NI routes, there will be some infrastructure in place for controlling people, harking back to the days of The Troubles.

It's more likely that they simply don't want to take foot passengers for whatever reason.



It seems that the whole situation is quite murky. Irish Ferries are denying that they had anything to do with it, but there's a lot of speculation that Terminal 3 was damaged by Irish Ferries previously, and then Darragh caused the second round of damage. Terminals 3 and 5 have linked walkways, so it's possible that they suspect that there's damage to Terminal 5 too and that the entire thing has to be inspected. There's also allegedly a video showing Irish Ferries wiping out their berth, so certainly interesting!



Yes, the second attempt at berthing was successful. Whether Fishguard can cope with all the traffic is another question.

Having said this, this situation really exposes the fragility of the Irish Sea links. Holyhead really should have a third linkspan available at the old HSS berth,

Last time I arrived in Holyhead on foot at end of October UK Border Force had manned booths to check passports. There has been a lot of tightening of controls on the ferries over the past year although the UK airports are still very relaxed.

Although they're called terminals in Holyhead they're really two ramps but there is one jetty with Irish Ferries tying on one side and Stena on the other side. A chunk of the jetty and a dolphin the Irish Ferries side has fallen into the sea. This seems to happened when the Ulysses turned it's thrusters on to try to dock. There are some stories that the other Irish Ferries ship had had a collision with the jetty earlier. There are also stories the jetty has corrosion damage.

One might suspect that it might suit Stena (as port owners) to have attention focussed on Irish Ferries.

There is lots of misinformation flying around and very little good information in the public domain on what is going on on in Holyhead.

I haven't seen any reports that the Marine Accident Investigation Branch are investigating which seems odd.

 

[berneyarms]

This is pretty much a non-issue, because they only need to have someone asking people "anything to declare?" on arrival. The UK doesn't do immigration checks from the RoI, just spot checks, so they only need a desk that they can call people over to if needs be, and it's more than likely already there, just as it is at other places like Stansted. Even on internal GB-NI routes, there will be some infrastructure in place for controlling people, harking back to the days of The Troubles.

It's more likely that they simply don't want to take foot passengers for whatever reason.



It seems that the whole situation is quite murky. Irish Ferries are denying that they had anything to do with it, but there's a lot of speculation that Terminal 3 was damaged by Irish Ferries previously, and then Darragh caused the second round of damage. Terminals 3 and 5 have linked walkways, so it's possible that they suspect that there's damage to Terminal 5 too and that the entire thing has to be inspected. There's also allegedly a video showing Irish Ferries wiping out their berth, so certainly interesting!



Yes, the second attempt at berthing was successful. Whether Fishguard can cope with all the traffic is another question.

Having said this, this situation really exposes the fragility of the Irish Sea links. Holyhead really should have a third linkspan available at the old HSS berth,

The HSS berth is, I suspect, a non runner as the ships nowadays are too big to get into the inner harbour.

 

[Cloud Strife]

The HSS berth is, I suspect, a non runner as the ships nowadays are too big to get into the inner harbour.

The issue with the old HSS berth appears to be mostly related to the length of ships, rather than the draft or width. Looking now, Terminal 1 (the HSS berth) can accommodate ships of up to 120 x 40, and the waters around the berth appear to be deep enough to accommodate modern ships. The access to the inner harbour also seems quite shallow, but that's not an insurmountable obstacle as it was evidently deeper when the HSS Explorer was in operation. It certainly seems as if it would be possible to have it as an emergency linkspan for the sake of redundancy.

There are also stories the jetty has corrosion damage.

Thinking out loud here: wasn't it previously damaged, when the passenger walkways were removed from the remote passenger terminal next to Terminals 3/5? It's the same jetty, so it seems quite possible that it was already in poor state. A friend working in shipping suggests that as there's no damage to either the Ulysses or James Joyce, the jetty probably just fell to pieces. I suspect that they're going to have to rebuild the entire structure, looking at pictures online.

The question for me is why both the British and Irish governments allowed Holyhead to operate in this way. There is zero redundancy, and it seems crazy that two linkspans were/are dependent on each other in this way. In Dublin, there are three (I think?) linkspans all entirely independent of each other.

 

[43055]

What about berths 2 and 5?

 

[berneyarms]

Berths 3 and 5 use different sides of the same jetty and I suspect that there may be issues with the integrity of the jetty itself.

Berth 2 is used by the SWIFT and I doubt any of the normal ferries could use it - it’s in the inner harbour too.

 

[poffle]

Information from North Wales Live a Reach Group publication. I've extracted the text and shown it below:

They've got a comment from MAIB although it sounds a bit like like official speak for "We heard about that" rather than that they have actually gone to Holyhead.

Marine investigators looking into Holyhead incident that halted ferry services

Marine Accident Investigation Branch inspectors are 'making enquiries'

www.dailypost.co.uk

Marine investigators looking into Holyhead incident that halted ferry services
Marine Accident Investigation Branch inspectors are 'making enquiries'

Marine investigators are looking into the Holyhead port incident that has halted ferry services. One of the berths at Terminal 3 - used by Irish Ferries - was damaged in Storm Darragh earlier this month.

This has seen ferry services to Dublin cancelled until at least January 15. A spokesperson at Holyhead Port said that on the weekend Storm Darragh hit, December 6-7, "two separate berthing incidents occurred affecting the Terminal 3 berth used by Irish Ferries - resulting in part of the berth structure collapsing and rendering it unusable".

Marine Accident Investigation Branch - a UK Government organisation authorised to investigate all maritime accidents in UK waters - has now released a statement to North Wales Live.

A spokesperson said: “MAIB is aware of an incident which occurred last week at the port of Holyhead.

"Inspectors are in the process of making enquiries to better understand the circumstances which may have contributed to the incident. Next steps will be determined once the evidence has been reviewed.”

Holyhead Port - where Stena Line is the port authority - said: "No injuries were reported, and all relevant authorities were informed of the incident. A thorough assessment into the extent of the damage and repairs required is ongoing."

Irish Ferries have been asked comment. The closure of the port for ferry services is causing widespread disruption - hitting the transport of goods, post and passengers in the key run-up to Christmas.

In a speech delivered in the House of Commons today, Plaid Cymru MP for Ynys Môn, Llinos Medi, criticised the UK Government for its lack of response in addressing the closure of the Port of Holyhead, following severe damage caused by Storm Darragh.

Ms Medi said that she was “certain” that if the Port of Dover or a London airport were closed for over a month, “there would be a huge effort to get these sites open again and to support the thousands of supply chain jobs affected”. She said that so far, Holyhead had been treated as an “afterthought”.

She said: “I believe that the government should be holding a debate on the UK wide impact of the closure of the port of Holyhead. Although ports in Wales are a matter for the Welsh Government, international trade is a matter reserved to the UK Government. Holyhead’s strategic location is key for the UK economy. Westminster cannot ignore this issue.”

Highlighting the impact on businesses, Ms Medi added: “Holyhead’s closure just before Christmas has had a direct impact on livelihoods and businesses on the island: the sudden ending of freight traffic means businesses have seen their work vanish overnight. This is pushing local businesses to breaking point."

She said UK Government should set up a hardship fund to support businesses and families directly affected by the closure of the port, as well those involved in the supply chain.

 

[Cloud Strife]

Berths 3 and 5 use different sides of the same jetty and I suspect that there may be issues with the integrity of the jetty itself.

I'm almost certain that there are, because the lack of damage to the ferries suggests that it must have come to pieces relatively easily.

Having said that, am I mistaken, or did Terminal 4 have a linkspan in the past? Google Earth suggests that there was one which was removed at some point between 2011 and 2016, which seems incredibly short sighted.

Berth 2 is used by the SWIFT and I doubt any of the normal ferries could use it - it’s in the inner harbour too.

They definitely can't, it's too small. Having said that, I do wonder if it would be possible to get the Dublin Swift or other HSC running, especially as wave heights are forecast to be well below the 3.5m limts. It might not be the most pleasant of journeys, but certainly doable. Manannan can sail in winter, so there's no reason why other HSCs couldn't do it.

edit: just checked, and it seems that Terminal 2 may not be operational. Dublin Swift has been using Terminal 5 between Stena's departures.

 

[poffle]

I'm almost certain that there are, because the lack of damage to the ferries suggests that it must have come to pieces relatively easily.

Having said that, am I mistaken, or did Terminal 4 have a linkspan in the past? Google Earth suggests that there was one which was removed at some point between 2011 and 2016, which seems incredibly short sighted.



They definitely can't, it's too small. Having said that, I do wonder if it would be possible to get the Dublin Swift or other HSC running, especially as wave heights are forecast to be well below the 3.5m limts. It might not be the most pleasant of journeys, but certainly doable. Manannan can sail in winter, so there's no reason why other HSCs couldn't do it.

edit: just checked, and it seems that Terminal 2 may not be operational. Dublin Swift has been using Terminal 5 between Stena's departures.

Also the Swift crew were spending their nights on Ulysses. Now that Ulysses is on Ireland - France and the James Joyce on Rosslare - Pembroke that wouldn't work.

 

[185143]

Also the Swift crew were spending their nights on Ulysses. Now that Ulysses is on Ireland - France and the James Joyce on Rosslare - Pembroke that wouldn't work.

There's a perfectly acceptable Travelodge minutes away from Holyhead Port. Which I saw someone saying on Facebook they'd stayed there and been told over half of bookings weren't turning up.

Where there's a will there's a way...

 

[poffle]

There's a perfectly acceptable Travelodge minutes away from Holyhead Port. Which I saw someone saying on Facebook they'd stayed there and been told over half of bookings weren't turning up.

Where there's a will there's a way...

UK border force mightn't be too keen on a load of Eastern Europeans living in the UK though.

 

[berneyarms]

There's a perfectly acceptable Travelodge minutes away from Holyhead Port. Which I saw someone saying on Facebook they'd stayed there and been told over half of bookings weren't turning up.

Where there's a will there's a way...

It overnights in Dublin not Holyhead.

It can’t deal with the winter seas. It’s a non-runner.

 

[kevconnor]

My understanding is that Birkenhead isn't setup for UK Border Control so I don't think they're taking foot passengers.

I frequently used the Birkenhead - Dublin overnight sailing on Norfolk Line days. This was set up for car traffic only. The port security and UK Border Force / Customs and Excise could be brusk. It was a Blackpool North syndrome (similar to what I have heard about Heysham) and was a hangover from the troubles. Back then, Birkenhead 12-quays had two link spans at some point since this was reduced to just one, which in regular times is all that is required for the twice-daily Belfast sailing and once daily freight only Dublin Service.

I would love to see this service return, especially since the P&O service from across the river was scrapped, and sea truck ferries stopped taking cars. But sadly, I don't think it's going to happen.

 

[185143]

UK border force mightn't be too keen on a load of Eastern Europeans living in the UK though.

True. Well that's what Irish Ferries get for going for cheap labour, a la P&O isn't it!

It overnights in Dublin not Holyhead.

It can’t deal with the winter seas. It’s a non-runner.

I wasn't aware of where it overnights, and won't argue with that at all, I've never sailed on the Dublin Swift and given the way Irish Ferries sacked their staff I favour of cheap foreign labour as P&O would subsequently do 15 or so years later, I very much intend to never do so. I've certainly heard of plenty of rough crossings on Dublin Swidt that's for sure!

The Isle of Innisfree has been running a temporary Dublin-Fishguard route today...

But has collided with the berth at Fishguard and has sustained damage. I wish I was joking. See the attached imagine of a hole in the side of Isle of Innisfree I've found on the world wide Web.

 

[poffle]

True. Well that's what Irish Ferries get for going for cheap labour, a la P&O isn't it!

I wasn't aware of where it overnights, and won't argue with that at all, I've never sailed on the Dublin Swift and given the way Irish Ferries sacked their staff I favour of cheap foreign labour as P&O would subsequently do 15 or so years later, I very much intend to never do so. I've certainly heard of plenty of rough crossings on Dublin Swidt that's for sure!

The Isle of Innisfree has been running a temporary Dublin-Fishguard route today...

But has collided with the berth at Fishguard and has sustained damage. I wish I was joking. See the attached imagine of a hole in the side of Isle of Innisfree I've found on the world wide Web.

I'm surprised I haven't heard a Russian/Chinese conspiracy angle to all this yet.

 

[185143]

I'm surprised I haven't heard a Russian/Chinese conspiracy angle to all this yet.

It'll turn out that someone deep down in the crew of any Irish Ferries ship has dual citizenship in either China or Russia and then that'll be it!

 

[Cloud Strife]

Also the Swift crew were spending their nights on Ulysses. Now that Ulysses is on Ireland - France and the James Joyce on Rosslare - Pembroke that wouldn't work.

True, but that was a cost-cutting measure more than a lack of accommodation.

UK border force mightn't be too keen on a load of Eastern Europeans living in the UK though.

If memory serves, the Dublin Swift only has a crew of 13, so I can't imagine the Home Office complaining about it. 44

It can’t deal with the winter seas. It’s a non-runner.

Actually, it can. The wave height is limited to 3.5m, which is enough to get the ship out there on most days during winter. Isle of Man Steam Packet keep Manannan on reserve all winter, and IoMSP already altered her to be able to handle winter sailings from Douglas to Liverpool. Even with the 3.5m limit, it should be perfectly possible to sail most days, although with a timetable subject to change. The question is whether Terminal 2 is actually operational, not whether the Dublin Swift can cope with it.

. Back then, Birkenhead 12-quays had two link spans at some point since this was reduced to just one, which in regular times is all that is required for the twice-daily Belfast sailing and once daily freight only Dublin Service.

There's also the Isle of Man berth, which can take ships of up to 140m in length. At a push, a HSC could be used between Dublin and Liverpool, as SuperSeaCat used to do for several years. They used to make the crossing in 3:45, so allowing for winter weather, a 4:30 sailing should be possible.

I would love to see this service return, especially since the P&O service from across the river was scrapped, and sea truck ferries stopped taking cars. But sadly, I don't think it's going to happen.

It's actually surprising that no-one has found a way to make a passenger Liverpool-Dublin service work. The distance is absolutely ideal for minicruises in both directions, and Liverpool is ideal for packing freight on board, just as it is for the Belfast run.

But has collided with the berth at Fishguard and has sustained damage. I wish I was joking. See the attached imagine of a hole in the side of Isle of Innisfree I've found on the world wide Web.

Oh blimey. Berthing there was always going to be difficult, and I was surprised that they managed it in the first place. They're still saying that the service is "delayed", but that hole is not going to be easy to repair.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Birkenhead Dublin not accepting foot passengers is a pretty poor situation that stenna will not be coping with, particularly well internally. Anyway, the birkenhead Belfast is well used at all times of year and will no doubt have already been heavily reserved in all types of accommodation on both sailings on the run-up to Christmas. I suspect the situation with foot passengers has little to do with passports or immigration and everything to do with the ability to provide sufficient boarding buses at birkenhead. But if the situation is going to go on indefinitely and beyond January 15th or whatever, they're going to have to change it

Another issue is that this weekend the Scottish crossings to larn and Belfast respectively, are going to be heavily disrupted by unexpected 38 or so hours of rather nasty weather, particularly at the Scottish end, this is certainly getting interesting and let's also not forget the difficulties of accessing the Scottish terminals for foot passengers. Since the king of maritime short sight remove the service from strandra which admittedly is still not an awful lot better but still
The same bad weather is likely to affect the flights and also the coach service that travels between Glasgow and Belfast using the stenner sailing

 

[Cloud Strife]

Looks like the hole to Isle of Innisfree wasn't as bad as it looked, so she set sail 7 hours late. Not the end of the world.

I suspect the situation with foot passengers has little to do with passports or immigration and everything to do with the ability to provide sufficient boarding buses at birkenhead

I'm not sure how it works at Birkenhead, but isn't it the case that the buses travel with the ship on some other routes? In this case, I think you're right. They may also not want to use precious lane metres for buses.

 

[185143]

Looks like the hole to Isle of Innisfree wasn't as bad as it looked, so she set sail 7 hours late. Not the end of the world.



I'm not sure how it works at Birkenhead, but isn't it the case that the buses travel with the ship on some other routes? In this case, I think you're right. They may also not want to use precious lane metres for buses.

Stena Line do not put foot passenger buses on the ship at any of their Irish Sea ports, they are all land based.

 

[Blindtraveler]

Yes, buses at birkenhead are all land-based and are I think hired in from one supplier or another, not sure who's got the contract at the moment as it's a while since I've used the long c crossing but no doubt at short notice the contractor either can't or won't provide additional capacity. And indeed stenner can't or won't pay for said capacity, this seems like the only logical option to me given that they're happy to accept car passengers. I suppose if this goes on longer term some of the car sharing ride sharing type services might pick up a few people who would be happy to car share just for the purposes of boarding and disembarking The vessel lol

 

[185143]

Yes, buses at birkenhead are all land-based and are I think hired in from one supplier or another, not sure who's got the contract at the moment as it's a while since I've used the long c crossing but no doubt at short notice the contractor either can't or won't provide additional capacity. And indeed stenner can't or won't pay for said capacity, this seems like the only logical option to me given that they're happy to accept car passengers. I suppose if this goes on longer term some of the car sharing ride sharing type services might pick up a few people who would be happy to car share just for the purposes of boarding and disembarking The vessel lol

Stagecoach provide the bus at Birkenhead. Just one Gold double decker.