The Irish Sea's new ferries: A floating masterpiece of design
Vložit
- čas přidán 17. 06. 2023
- Stena Line, the Swedish ferry company, recently purchased a fleet of three new ships for their Irish sea routes: the Stena Estrid for Dublin - Holyhead, and the Stena Edda & Embla for Belfast - Birkenhead (Liverpool). They are fantastic vessels, so I thought it would be good to review them.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Music:
- An unknown song used in the following Stena Line promotional video: • Ferry Travel Redefined...
- Can I Tell You A Secret - Tracktribe
----------------------------------------------------------------
Photography & Videography:
- Stena Line (especially the Press Media Library, it's great!)
- Some is from myself
- Nilfanion and Anton Leddin, CC BY-SA 3.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/b..., via Wikimedia Commons
- FlugKerl2, CC BY-SA 4.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
- Dave Jenkins - InfoGibraltar and Brinki, CC BY-SA 2.0 creativecommons.org/licenses/..., via Wikimedia Commons
- Isle of Man Steam Packet Co.
- Brittany Ferries
- La Tribune des Metiers
Love to go on the ferry to the Republic of Ireland. I have been on the ferry from Harwich to Port of Holland and from Dover to Calais.
I've sailed on a few ferries including all of P&O's North Sea fleet, 2 of Stena's e-flexers and one of Stena's other ships. The E-flexers are lovely to travel on, seems to be a good amount of room, nice ambience, very modern and absolutely spotless. Not a fan of the lack of windows in the Hygge lounge though and one thing I think would be really good (especially for the pretty short Dublin-Holyhead route is pod style beds which are common on Japanese ferries. Offering a capsule/pod bed for maybe £15-£20 would be a real winner in my eyes as a cabin isn't really needed on a sailing that short but it's still nice to get a little sleep, especially on a night time crossing.
Very interesting video. Having previously travelled on the Birkenhead - Belfast route before but on the previous ships Stena Mersey, and Stena Lagan. When I heard they were being replaced with new ships I was surprised because I didn't think they were that only having entered service in 2005. But it was very interesting to see what the new ships looked like inside and out and I hope one day experience them for myself.
I'm happy to hear about boats or trains!
Great video and would love to see other videos like this about other ferries! :)
Good to see you back after these couple of months, I kept notifications on!
This ships are good looking machines I remember the time around late 2019 that I saw outside of Shanghai if I am not mistaken the Edda doing her first sea trials ! Nice ships overall but time will tell if are actually good or not !
Living in Manchester U.K. 21 years and having extended family in Rural Ireland, I prefer SailRail between Holyhead - Dublin - I have been on the Stena Adventurer before, but I find the decor and the public areas of the ship both dated and impractical, including the Stena Plus Lounge - Stena has always had lower passenger numbers than Irish Ferries because of its lack of a proper passenger facility at Dublin and because it’s mainly geared towards cabins on overnight sailings despite the 3 hour crossing time - and of these Irish Ferries vessels, my clear favourite is the Irish Ferries Ulysses, especially the Club Class Lounge - my 2nd favourite is the Irish Ferries WB Yeates - I don’t like the Dublin Swift because the ride is too rough, even for a shorter crossing and it’s more liable to weather related cancellations
Of all things, I’d think the builder’s plate is something there would be some pride in. Generally this is something crews tend to take pride in, just look at the Somua nameplates on the French interwar tanks.
Well yes, this is what I thought. That’s why it’s all the more surprising that it doesn’t get any attention considering the rest of the ship is usually spotless.
Maybe it’s a sacrificial anode! (Joking, but damn even with seawater that is FAST.)
Galicia was built in 2020, and when I was aboard in 2023 there was basically no paint anymore on the builder plate. In fact I thought this was a feature that it was gray/brown...
Funnily enough, you can see that the holes in the plate don't match the bolts used to fix it, they had to bore new holes 1cm closer to each other...
nsm09.casimages.com/img/2023/05/31//2305311242378967518188176.jpg
Yes, I also think the state of the builder's plate is somewhat intended. On Brittany Ferries' Galicia (which is french flagged) the plate is in the same state, in fact when seeing it I didn't think it previously had paint on.
Great video! That passageway gave me East Midlands Trains stagecoach vibes... 😂
It is a little like that, though they wouldn’t be caught did with the wood!
More please. Try the Stena Adventurer Holyhead to Dublin route. I sailed on the Stena Estrid. Was disappointed it all seemed to be one long corridor. You mentioned that with the Embla.
Fantastic video as always, and that your covering more aspects of transportation. Perhaps a bus video is in order...
Perhaps. Though it’s more trains first I think.
@@GWVillager I think so
I just don’t understand why they can’t make a foot passenger only ferry that would be able to sail from either Liverpool old port (as close as possible to Lime St) or Holyhead and sail right up the River Liffey at high tide (or low tide if the Liffey Channel was properly dredged) as far as O’ Connell Bridge or the Custom House to make connections with onward travel a bit easier - car and freight traffic could still use the existing ferries
My guess is it’s purely business overhead. Why manage extra kinds of ship and different routes and ports if you can direct everyone onto the one? Even though as you say direct car-less passenger access from a city centre would be a great user experience.
This looks much more spacious than the one time I went on a ferry to France. I don’t know if the ships were smaller or if they just crammed in more passengers, but the “restaurant” (more like a train’s sandwich and sweet shop) was much more cramped than in these photos. No top deck access either to my memory, just a bit on the sides.
What was the ferry?
@@GWVillager sadly I don’t recall! Could’ve been Brittany, could’ve been someone else. I do recall the outbound trip had an arcade in the top floor, but the return trip with the same company didn’t. This would’ve been… 05? 07?
Normally my dad would get around the visited-city by train and bus with me on summer holidays, but that trip to France was in a place only accessible by motorway. He worked out it was cheaper to take his car over on ferry than to rent a worse car over there.
And so we went by ferry, probably the cheapest and worst one available!
@@kaitlyn__L Interesting, that certainly doesn't sound like Brittany, their deck access is usually quite good and the restaurants are superb. Is it possible it was Newhaven to Dieppe?
Slightly unrelated to this, how are these an improvement to the HSS Stenna used to field on these journeys. I recall a Belfast - Stranraer journey taking under 2 hours. But on the current fleet a Liverpool to Belfast journey is over 8 hours.
The Belfast to Stranraer route is still very much around, run by the Superfasts VII and VIII, and is still 2 hours. The E-Flexers operate the always 8 hour route formerly run by the Stenas Lagan and Mersey.
The Stena HSS stopped running back in 2010 or 2011 and we're replaced with the Stena Superfasts. At the same time Stena closed the Stranraer port and opened a new port further up the loch to Cairnryan. I think the move allowed for a slightly shorter distance which ment the crossing times didn't increase to much with introduction of slower normal looking ferries. (The HSS being a catamaran)
What are the Fishguard to Rosslare ferries like? How good is the overall transfer from train to ferry?
The ferry that currently operates the Fishguard to Rosslare route is the venerable 43 year old Stena Europe. The best way to describe her is old, she’s a nice vessel but very tired and dated, hence she will be replaced in July by a heavily refurbished Stena Nordica, which has received interiors very similar to the E Flexers mentioned here.
The rail-sea transfers are exceptional both at Fishguard and Rosslare - the trains pull right up to the terminal and timings match up with sailings in most cases. Unfortunately the rolling stock at either end isn’t amazing.
Hell yeah! Boat Pimps!
shut up no one asked you
i love trhe new boat it is very cooool anf great boat baot aboatt boat boay toabbaot
The Eflexers are just like the IETS crap I guess
Been on Estrid and Edda ended up breaking a door
@@msjacksshipsadventures8382 Oh dear, how did that happen?
@@GWVillager idk lol
Boat le good
Stop Fossfuel
Convert all ships to nuclear.
The design seems good, just shame that they had to be built in China smh
They are the worst I have travelled
Ship's s should be cosy and darker these boats are awful
airplane better
shut up lord stinkwad
There’s no shortage of plane based channels out there…
@@GWVillager GWAviation rn