Fleet Maritime Feb 2012 by Orla Sweeney

MARITIME 1

fleetMaritime: IRISH SHIPPING & FREIGHT Compiled by Howard Knott Edited by Jarlath Sweeney email: maritime@fleet.ie

Volume 7, No. 1 Spring 2012

2011 a more positive year for Irish Sea ferry services

hrough 2010 it had become clear that Irish and European business activity was not going to bounce back as quickly as it had collapsed over the previous couple of years and that the Ro-Ro ferry operators, in particular, could not continue to operate the same level of services and losses. Towards the end of the year Stena Line closed its three times daily Larne to Fleetwood service and DFDS, having earlier in the year bought Maersk’s Norfolkline services, sold the Belfast to Birkenhead and Belfast to Heysham twice daily services to Stena. In the first weeks of 2011 DFDS closed the similar twice daily Dublin to Birkenhead operation and their daily Dublin to Heysham service.

Cobelfret in operation

While The Irish Exporters Association, amongst others, expressed concern that the loss of these central corridor routes would squeeze capacity at peak times and push up costs, both on freight rates and on the extra haulage required to use other routes, the situation very quickly sorted itself out. Seatruck moved its Larne to Heysham service onto a twice daily basis and also took over the route and the vessel operating it linking Dublin and Heysham on a daily basis. Within weeks P & O Ferries switched the veteran ‘Norcape’ from its role as third ship on the Dublin to Liverpool service to the Larne to Troon North Channel route replacing a smaller vessel while bring the significantly greater capacity ‘European Endeavour’ onto the Dublin route. This added a 50 trailer extra capacity ex-Dublin as well as enabling the line to offer a third daily sailing with passenger capacity. Additional passenger capacity was very much a priority for Celtic Link Ferries when it came to replace the ‘Norman Voyager’ on completion of her charter through LD Lines. Its replacement vessel which was named ‘Celtic Horizon’ had been built in 2005

as a sister ship to the pair of vessels being operated by Stena on the Belfast to Birkenhead route. Though of similar external dimensions to her predecessor the vessel has double the number of cabins and passenger spaces as well as capacity for over 40 additional trailers on each sailing. At the end of the Summer season Stena withdrew its fast craft operating on both the Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead and the Rosslare to Fishguard routes. The Line intends to run the Dun Laoghaire service as a Summer only service in 2012 but the ‘Stena Lynx’ craft has been sold out for further service to a Korean operator.

Seatruck Progress

Cobelfret continued to develop traffic on its twice weekly Dublin to Zeebrugge and Rotterdam services. The vessels being used are part of a pool that also operates the Benelux to Tilbury, Killinghome and Ipswich services. The vessels in the pool vary in capacity so that the Line can adjust capacity on a weekly basis to meet traffic demand. On the Dublin routes vessels sizes range from 2900 lane metres to over 4300 lane metres. In addition, the Line introduced a weekly LoLo service operating on a similar route to the other Irish services but with the Ports of Radicatel, near Le Havre and Cork added. The Cobelfret Ro-Ro model involves the shipment of significant volumes of ISO containers and tanks. Though the Seatruck Ferries operating on its Dublin to Liverpool and Warrenpoint to Heysham routes constitute the newest fleet on the Irish Sea, in 2010, the company commissioned the German FSG Flensburg yard that had built the recent Cobelfret vessels to build a new series of four higher capacity vessels to operate these routes. The length and draft of the new vessels was constrained by the dimensions operable at Heysham Port. The first of the new vessels came into service in Dublin just before Christmas adding a further 35 unaccompanied trailers each way to capacity. The second sister ship is due to come into being this month, while the Warrenpoint to Heysham route will receive its new vessels in the second half of the year. In commenting on these developments Alistair Eagles, managing Director of the Seatruck’s Irish Sea Operations said; “Seatruck’s unaccompanied trailer operations on the Irish Sea continue to boom. Volumes in 2011 rose by a remarkable 58% to over 300,000 units and the Company now offer 80 sailings a week over four routes.” The major ‘step-change’ on the Irish Ro-Ro was the completion by Stena Line of its €240 million investment programme for its Northern Ireland to

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MARITIME 11 Scotland service. (See separate Report in this issue). The displacing of the three older vessels by the twin ‘Superfast’ cruise ferries offering an every four hours sailing schedule adds a further 5000 lane metres each way every day to the Northern Corridor. Irish Ferries retained their existing schedules and vessels during 2011 including the ‘Dublin Swift’ fast ferry which continues to operate twice daily on the Dublin to Holyhead route year round. Tony Kelly, a Director of the Company, believes that the continued success of the vessel reflects the need for faster personal transport over the Irish Sea for businessmen and tourists. The services exRosslare to Cherbourg and to Roscoff also carried significantly greater passenger and car numbers. Failte Ireland figures indicate that 2011 was a more successful year for the Irish Tourism business and, though all of the ferry companies did experience a continued improvement in passenger numbers following the turn-around of business during the

2010 volcanic ash-cloud event, the improvement was not sufficient to save the Fastnet Line being put under Examinership at the end of the Summer season. Its vessel ‘Julia’ was tied up in Cork and the company intends to resume services at Easter 2012. Tourism interests believe that the better passenger performance, particularly on Stena Line and Irish Ferries services, also reflects greater marketing emphasis by those companies on ‘Rail & Sail’ tickets combing ferry tickets with rail tickets from destinations throughout Britain. One development of this product has been the introduction for the 2011 season by the Dublin based ‘Railtours’ Company of Irish tour packages based on rail from London to Holyhead and onward with Irish Ferries.

Line is particularly significant. The Line, which is represented in Ireland by KMR Shipping, uses charters Cobelfret tonnage on the service and its success proves that it is possible to economically and safely operates long distance ferry services with relatively small vessels. Such vessels can be accommodated at any of the Irish Ferry ports. Like the Cobelfret services RMR also offer ISO container capacity on their vessels. Looking forward to 2012 the financials for the ferry operators appear to continue to be tough, particularly as Eurozone growth stalls. There appears to be very adequate capacity on all corridors including the direct services to the Continent where traffic is expected to grow over the coming years as higher fuel costs, ‘Eurovignette’ and other costs are imposed that make use of the UK landbridge increasingly less attractive.

On the pure freight side the opening of a ferry service in early 2011 linking Dublin with Nigerian and Ghanaian Ports by the Dutch based RMR

Hapag-Lloyd celebrates 150 years of trade through Southampton

n 1861 the Hapag owned ‘Borussia’, an iron steamer, providing a mail and passenger service between Europe and New York, made her maiden call to Southampton Port. In those days the ‘Borussia’, which had accommodation for around 500 passengers would take about 15 days to reach New York from Europe.

Hapag Lloyd and the DP World Southampton Port marked the 150th anniversary on board the 8750 TEU, ‘Basle Express’, a vessel with a service speed of 23.5 knots, capable of reaching New York in about 5 days. Hapag Lloyd vessels now call Southampton up to six times each week.

‘Nora Bheag’ is a big hit a Volvo Ocean Race Stopover

xactly six months before the 201112 Volvo Ocean Race Fleet reaches Galway and the fi nishing line of the Round-the-World marathon event, this century old Galway Hooker sailed into the Port at Abu Dhabi amongst the 70ft Ocean racers that were completing the second leg of the event having left Cape Town, South Africa some three and a half weeks earlier. The part-Irish (Discover Ireland) sponsored competitor ‘Team Sanya’ had suffered serious

gear damage not long after leaving the South African Port and, so was not at Abu Dhabi to welcome ‘Nora Bheag’. The Hooker is in the UAE capital as part of a culture exchange programme to celebrate the maritime histories of Ireland and Abu Dhabi.

she has been mainly used for participation in regatt as in the Galway Bay area. Fleet Transport is an official Patron of the Lets Do It Galway Volvo Ocean Race Campaign.

‘Nora Bheag’ was the ‘guest of honour’ at the official Irish Day on the 6 January where she also sailed alongside a fleet of Arab Dhows. The return exchange will happen when the Volvo Ocean Race reaches Galway in July and six of the dhows and their sixty crew members will be hosted in the City. They will take part in an exhibition race against a fleet of Galway hookers as part of the Grand Finale festivities. ‘Nora Bheag’ which was built in Galway City was, in her working days, used to transport animals to and from the Connemara mainland, turf from the mainland for fuel, going to Mass on Sundays, bringing goods from the shop and fi shing. Since her complete re-build in 1988

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Stena Line launches ‘Superfast’ Scottish service Volume 5, No. 4 Winter 2010

tena Line launched its two ‘Superfast’ vessels onto its Belfast to Scotland service in November 2011. This completed a €240 investment programme on the Corridor. The formal launch event, which Stena hosted at the new Cairnryan Port on November 25 was attended by Government Ministers from the Northern Ireland and Scottish Administrations, Dan Sten Olsen, Chairman of Stena Line and a large number of Stena customers. Within the programme the Swedish owners invested in a brand new Terminal in Belfast which was opened in 2008 and had cost of €40 million. Th is has, since its opening, proven to be very versatile in handling a wide range of vessels types and sizes and the location of VT4 gives easy access to the N.I. Motorway network avoiding both the city and other Port traffic. Draft and vessel size constraints at the Port at Stranraer which had served as the Terminal point of the service since its inception over 100 years ago forced Stena to seek a new location within Loch Ryan. It proved impossible to negotiate an agreement with P & O Ferries to share its facilities in the Lough and, so Stena set about planning the building of a totally new facility about one mile downstream of the P & O site. Stena invested almost €100 million in building the new facility and was able to use the Company’s considerable expertise in the Ro-Ro Port development gained from their ownership and operation of several ports in Britain and Scandinavia. The Port development was supported by the Scottish Government. This project included building of the road network to serve the Port through work at its access but also development of the routes that link both ferry Terminals in the Lough to the main UK Motorway network. Through ScotRail passenger services to the region have been improved and feeder bus services have been put into place servicing the up to six times a day arrivals at the new terminal. Speaking at the opening of the new Port on 25 November, Scottish First Minister, Alex Salmond MSP said that a major priority for the Government was regeneration of the town of Stranraer to fulfi l its potential as a tourist and local business destination now that the heavy ferry traffic has been removed.

Sten Olsen, Chairman of Stena Line said: ‘Today is a historic day for the people of Scotland and Northern Ireland. The long term future of this important ferry link between both countries has been secured for future generations.’

development was in the charter and internal rebuild of the identical Cruise ferries ‘Superfast VII’ and ‘Superfast VIII’ to meet the particular requirements of the route. These 30,000 gross tonne vessels were originally built in 2001 to operate at speeds of up to 27 knots for Superfast Ferries in its eastern Mediterranean services, but have, more recently been operating in the Baltic with Tallink. The re-build for the Belfast service involved taking out all passenger cabins and their replacement with much more extensive eating and relaxing areas for passengers on the two and a quarter hour passage. Passenger capacity of each vessel is now 1200. The opportunity was also taken to increase the heights on the freight decks to over five metres so as to be able to accommodate the significantly higher trailers that are in service within the UK and in Ireland. Capacity to take vehicles laden with hazardous cargo has also been increased. Launching the new vessels onto the route Dan

Speaking to Fleet Maritime aboard ‘Stena Superfast VII’ during the launch sailing, ‘Fleet Transport Women in Transport Award’ winner, Brigid Derry said that she sees a great future for the new vessels which enable Stena to double its freight capacity on the route. With Stena and P & O each offering six rounds trips a day with vessels of similar freight capacity trailer capacity on the corridor increases to over 1400 trailers a day in each direction. She also said that the Scottish road improvements and the transit times on the vessels of two hours or so would help to further build traffic on the corridor. Following the displacement by the ‘Superfast’ vessels the three ships previously operating the route were tied up in Belfast. The ‘Stena Navigator’ which had undergone an extensive re-furbishment following her purchase from Seafrance in 2009, was, within ten days, sold on to another operator and took up service in the Mediterranean. Industry sources suggest that the ‘Stena Caledonia’ may be sold for scrap while the HSS ‘Stena Discovery’ may be sold for further service outside Europe. The three vessels that had previously operated the Belfast to Fleetwood service closed at end of 2010 and which had lain in Belfast for most of 2011 have now been sold on for further service on the Black Sea. The sale of these vessels has left Stena short of a suitable vessel to take over the Rosslare to Fishguard service during the ‘Stena Europe’ 2012 annual refit and the company has had to charter space from Irish Ferries vessel ‘Isle of Inismore’ to cover their commitments. At the launch of the Cairnryan facility, Stena Line’s Frank Nieuwenhuys told Fleet Maritime that, following the clearance of the Belfast to Birkenhead service takeover by the UK and Irish Competition Authorities, Stena had now completed the full integration of the service into the Stena network and systems. The Line will now move to further develop the service offered on that route notwithstanding the huge commitment on the Scottish routes.

However, the major part of the Stena

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MARITIME 1V imonMaersk Moore, CEO ofLine the London estimate that 65 million road a year New service brings deep-sea services back tomiles Cork

Gateway Port project has announced that hecompany a r r ivaplans l atto open t he the the newRingaskiddy facility whichTerminal includes in Cork 25 a 9 million sq. ft .Harbour Logisticson Park January 2600 TEU container in the fiof nalthequarter of 2013. The vessel ‘Esther marked the deepwater portShulte’ will have an initial start of the fi rst regular direct capacity of 1.6 million TEU’s. It trans-Atlantic to an Irish is located someservice 25 miles east of Port since demise of Irish London. Thethe new quay wall will Shipping over400 thirty yearsfurther ago. extend about metres out into the Thames estuary than Th callprevious took place almost exactly didisthe terminal on the one site.hundred years after the ‘Titanic’ made her fi rst and only call to the Port. The ‘Esther Schulte’ is one of six similar container vessels that Maersk Line has chartered from its German owners to operate the revised ‘CRX’ service. Th is is scheduled to operate weekly connecting Mexico and Costa Rica direct with the Ports of Cork, Tilbury, Rotterdam and Bremerhaven. The inclusion of Cork on the schedule follows the securing by Maersk of the contract to bring Fyffe’s produce to Ireland. Th is traffic was previously shipped in specialist reefer ships chartered by the cargo owner and the loads are now being fully containerised for shipment by Maersk.

The London Gateway Logistics Park promoters

will be saved through the use of this facility by companies’ the REnglish Fruit loaded serving in Costa ica is South-East.to reach Cork within scheduled 13 days of collection. The previous call in the rotation at Manzanillo, Panama allows the service to connect with the extensive Maersk line feeder coverage, ensuring, according to the line, competitive transit times to and from the rest of Central America and the Caribbean. At present Danish owned Maersk, which is the world’s largest container shipping line does not operate any other services into Ireland. Its feeder traffic to and from its deepsea services is mainly shipped via Dublin, Cork and Belfast using BG Freight vessels. It exited the Irish Ro-Ro business with the sale of the Norfolk Line to DFDS.

and are also equipped with its own on-board cranes to facilitate working at less well equipped Ports in the Caribbean and elsewhere. They are also unusual in having 600 reefer plugs enabling up to 60% of the containers on board to be charged and the required temperature inside each box maintained.

To support the new service the Port of Cork has purchased a mobile container crane which has been located on the deep water terminal at Ringaskiddy. The crane is capable of discharging a vessel with containers stowed up to seven across, but can also be used by the Port for discharge and loading of bulk cargo moving over the Terminal.

Securing the new service comes following a good year for the Port’s business. In his end of year review Cork Port Chairman, Dermot O’Mahony said; “The Port of Cork is pleased to announce that total trade traffic in 2011 has remained strong with exports increasing by 9% over 2010 volumes.” The Port’s Container (Lo-Lo) business has shown an increase of 5% with over 150,000 TEU handled in 2011. While Export figures now match 2007 levels imports through the Port are still 12.9% below 2007 levels. The Port comments that the continued low volume of imports is inevitably putt ing huge strain on the Ports, shipping lines and transport sector servicing the country.

The vessels being used by Maersk in this traffic have a relatively shallow draft of about 7.5 metres

Coastal feeder route ‘a great success’ n the course of discussions at a recent Atlantic Arc Commission working group the representative of the Britt any Ports Group which includes Brest, St. Malo and L’Orient spoke about the recently introduced container feeder service operated by Peel Ports owned, BG Freight line.

to the launch of the service using a 660 TEU vessel virtually all of this traffic was sent by road. Initially the focus was on import cargo but the ready availability of empty containers at the Brittany Port has facilitated the development of an export trade for chicken meat, in particular, using reefer containers.

This single vessel service operates weekly linking Rotterdam with Brest and calls en route to Montoir and Dunkirk taking deep-sea containers for Maersk, MSC and others. Prior

As part of a Port and Airport re-organisation the Regional Government for Britt any has taken control of the three local Ports and the Airports at Brest and Rennes. The Ferry Port

of Roscoff remains outside the grouping for the moment. The Border, Midland & Western Regional Assembly (BM) is hosting an Atlantic Arc Commission conference in Dublin on 7 February. The focus will be on the potential for co-operation throughout the EU Western Seaboard Countries on all aspects of Maritime and marine development.

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