Steam Packet Warns Of Disruption To Sailings

[woolley]

4 hours ago, HelmutX said:

Yeah, GD4ELI, hopefully the beer was plentiful too! And should have been complimentary!

Tremendous idea. What's worse than a boatload of frustrated moaning gits in the middle of the night? Spot on. A boatload of pissed up aggressive moaning gits in the middle of the night.

[TheTeapot]

18 minutes ago, woolley said:

Tremendous idea. What's worse than a boatload of frustrated moaning gits in the middle of the night? Spot on. A boatload of pissed up aggressive moaning gits in the middle of the night.

I know I'm not everyone, but I would be much less aggressive and tone down the moaning if they gave me lots of free beer, were I in that scenario

Edited November 23, 2023 by TheTeapot

[Roger Mexico]

Perhaps unexpectedly, the Steamie have issued a long mea culpa, explaining what went wrong:

The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is apologising to customers for recent disruptions, and is providing some context for why November has seen so much upheaval in sailing times.

Primarily, the cause for the changes to schedules has been around time and tide.

The Department of Infrastructure’s project to upgrade mooring facilities on the King Edward VIII pier unfortunately coincides with low tides at the same time as IOMSPC scheduled arrivals and departures.

Ordinarily this would not cause a problem. However, operating from the shallower berth on the Queen Victoria linkspan creates a risk due to the presence of concrete reinforcement on the seabed designed to protect the infrastructure from Manannan’s powerful water-jet propulsion system.

Both of the Company’s conventional vessels, Ben-my-Chree and Manxman, are exposed to the risk of damaging their vulnerable propellers and rudders in such circumstances.

The coincidence of the low tides and arrival times was the primary cause of rescheduled sailings last week.

Again, unfortunately the recent storms have led to added siltation in Heysham Port. This has now coincided with low tides around scheduled arrival and departure times.

So, while the Queen Victoria berth is no longer a cause of schedule changes in Douglas, the Company has had to make changes to the schedule due to effectively the same issue in Heysham – too little water to carry out berthing operations safely. Again, this situation is not specific to one vessel – Ben-my-Chree and Manxman would be affected in the same way.

While tidal conditions and scheduled arrival or departure times have been the primary cause of the disruptions to schedules other factors have also been at play.

Thursday’s 08:45 was cancelled due to predicted weather conditions at Heysham Port exceeding the safe entry limits. This limit is still under review but while it is in place the Company is fully supportive of masters employing maximum precaution in their decisions about making safe approaches to Heysham.

The disruption to Wednesday’s 19:45 departure from Douglas to Heysham was due to a combination of silting at Heysham Port and knock-on effects from the cancellation of Thursday’s 08:45 sailing to Heysham.

The Company, therefore, felt it had to load the maximum number of freight trailers on Wednesday’s 20:30 departure in order to clear the harbour freight area, which has been temporarily reduced as a result of the ongoing harbour improvement work.

This led to a delay leaving Douglas and, as a result of the ongoing siltation at Heysham and the timing of low tide, the Master became aware there wouldn’t be enough water to enter Heysham until 03:30. Therefore, the vessel slow steamed in order to arrive when conditions were favourable.

The late arrival was compounded by conflicting with another company’s scheduled departure time. The Port’s dockers quite rightly give preference to the vessel on schedule. This led to a delay to discharge and subsequent loading times while the dockers served the other vessel.

The Company fully understand the frustration of passengers and customers at the delays and cancellations.

They then go on to say they expect more problems next week.  Perhaps the schedule isn't quite as robust as it might be?

[finlo]

Arrow is heading for Heysham as we speak.

[NoTail]

12 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Perhaps unexpectedly, the Steamie have issued a long mea culpa, explaining what went wrong:

The Isle of Man Steam Packet Company is apologising to customers for recent disruptions, and is providing some context for why November has seen so much upheaval in sailing times.

Primarily, the cause for the changes to schedules has been around time and tide.

The Department of Infrastructure’s project to upgrade mooring facilities on the King Edward VIII pier unfortunately coincides with low tides at the same time as IOMSPC scheduled arrivals and departures.

Ordinarily this would not cause a problem. However, operating from the shallower berth on the Queen Victoria linkspan creates a risk due to the presence of concrete reinforcement on the seabed designed to protect the infrastructure from Manannan’s powerful water-jet propulsion system.

Both of the Company’s conventional vessels, Ben-my-Chree and Manxman, are exposed to the risk of damaging their vulnerable propellers and rudders in such circumstances.

The coincidence of the low tides and arrival times was the primary cause of rescheduled sailings last week.

Again, unfortunately the recent storms have led to added siltation in Heysham Port. This has now coincided with low tides around scheduled arrival and departure times.

So, while the Queen Victoria berth is no longer a cause of schedule changes in Douglas, the Company has had to make changes to the schedule due to effectively the same issue in Heysham – too little water to carry out berthing operations safely. Again, this situation is not specific to one vessel – Ben-my-Chree and Manxman would be affected in the same way.

While tidal conditions and scheduled arrival or departure times have been the primary cause of the disruptions to schedules other factors have also been at play.

Thursday’s 08:45 was cancelled due to predicted weather conditions at Heysham Port exceeding the safe entry limits. This limit is still under review but while it is in place the Company is fully supportive of masters employing maximum precaution in their decisions about making safe approaches to Heysham.

The disruption to Wednesday’s 19:45 departure from Douglas to Heysham was due to a combination of silting at Heysham Port and knock-on effects from the cancellation of Thursday’s 08:45 sailing to Heysham.

The Company, therefore, felt it had to load the maximum number of freight trailers on Wednesday’s 20:30 departure in order to clear the harbour freight area, which has been temporarily reduced as a result of the ongoing harbour improvement work.

This led to a delay leaving Douglas and, as a result of the ongoing siltation at Heysham and the timing of low tide, the Master became aware there wouldn’t be enough water to enter Heysham until 03:30. Therefore, the vessel slow steamed in order to arrive when conditions were favourable.

The late arrival was compounded by conflicting with another company’s scheduled departure time. The Port’s dockers quite rightly give preference to the vessel on schedule. This led to a delay to discharge and subsequent loading times while the dockers served the other vessel.

The Company fully understand the frustration of passengers and customers at the delays and cancellations.

They then go on to say they expect more problems next week.  Perhaps the schedule isn't quite as robust as it might be?

This is all very well. I would appreciate a £50 voucher or something as it was a pretty horrendous 12 hour trip for us.

[Frances]

knowing the inadequacy of Heysham (and the lack of any alternative) they went ahead and built a boat that required more clearance in every respect from a port whose owners are notorious for extracting the last penny from customers (I used to refer to Liverpool airport as the John Lemon because of the sour taste it left) with a well known sandbank problem

[2112]

59 minutes ago, NoTail said:

This is all very well. I would appreciate a £50 voucher or something as it was a pretty horrendous 12 hour trip for us.

You would appreciate, unfortunately you will get nothing. 

[2112]

Having just read IOMSPCo press release on Facebook I would say, it’s a real PR disaster, resulting in the Arrow being recalled. At the same time, there is an almost blame game, especially with the work involved in Douglas Harbour. 

[Capt_Mainwaring]

5 minutes ago, 2112 said:

Having just read IOMSPCo press release on Facebook I would say, it’s a real PR disaster, resulting in the Arrow being recalled. At the same time, there is an almost blame game, especially with the work involved in Douglas Harbour. 

Wouldn't quite say PR disaster. It would have happened with the Ben too. The only thing that wouldn't have been going on is the KE VIII pier but in theory work could have needed to happen and then it would affect Ben. Heysham, can't really be helped other than putting pressure on Peel Ports.

The Ben used to be moved by up to an hour either way due to tides quite often.

[Frances]

It's only in the last few months I recall the Ben times departing from the standard 8.45am to Heysham and 14:15 return - today's 7:45 allowed passengers off at 12:35 the Ben would given the sea state probably have had the Passengers off by 12:20-12:25 - in the many years of winter crossing it was very rare to get off after 12.30 - the crossing was faster than the previous 3 I've done in last couple of months, the vibration of the engines was definitely considerably more than the Ben and very noticeable. And they haven't yet fixed 1 of the only 2 ladies loos serving the lounges on deck 8, it's been out of order for at least 2 weeks.

[John Wright]

33 minutes ago, Frances said:

It's only in the last few months I recall the Ben times departing from the standard 8.45am to Heysham and 14:15 return - today's 7:45 allowed passengers off at 12:35 the Ben would given the sea state probably have had the Passengers off by 12:20-12:25 - in the many years of winter crossing it was very rare to get off after 12.30 - the crossing was faster than the previous 3 I've done in last couple of months, the vibration of the engines was definitely considerably more than the Ben and very noticeable. And they haven't yet fixed 1 of the only 2 ladies loos serving the lounges on deck 8, it's been out of order for at least 2 weeks.

As far back as I can remember short variations at low tide on spring tides with Ben. Given that Mx draws 8 inches more I’d expect them to be more frequent and longer.

[Banker]

1 hour ago, Frances said:

It's only in the last few months I recall the Ben times departing from the standard 8.45am to Heysham and 14:15 return - today's 7:45 allowed passengers off at 12:35 the Ben would given the sea state probably have had the Passengers off by 12:20-12:25 - in the many years of winter crossing it was very rare to get off after 12.30 - the crossing was faster than the previous 3 I've done in last couple of months, the vibration of the engines was definitely considerably more than the Ben and very noticeable. And they haven't yet fixed 1 of the only 2 ladies loos serving the lounges on deck 8, it's been out of order for at least 2 weeks.

Can’t say I’ve noticed the vibration of engines, where on ship do you notice it ?

[Kopek]

8 inches!!! So all the delays are down to 200 mm. That's a cock up isn't it

Perhaps it is down to more PR that we are more aware of the delays now but there do seem to be many more that in the past?

[John Wright]

2 minutes ago, Kopek said:

8 inches!!! So all the delays are down to 200 mm. That's a cock up isn't it

Perhaps it is down to more PR that we are more aware of the delays now but there do seem to be many more that in the past?

8 inches is 8 inches. How long does it take for the tide to rise by that much? On top of that the harbour has had extra unexpected silting ( siltation in SPCo speak ).

[Kopek]

Whether 8 in or 200 mm, that is a very small tolerance for a bloody big boat!!! The silting has been long known about but even if unexpected, the new boat should have allowed for such an arising with knowledge of Heysham harbour???

Is there a long term plan to abandon Heysham? To where? Birkinhead, Barrow???

Are we being soft sold to this outcome?