The Old B+I - Where are those boats now?

DWCommuter

Got into a conversation over a drink last night and ending up remembering our 80s experience with the B+I line. The Connacht, The Leinster and the Jetfoil were all fondly talked of. So did a bit of googling and surprise surprise these tubs are still plying a trade.

The Connacht built in Cork is still sailing in Croatia. Its the ferry on the right of the picture renamed the Dubrovnik.



The Leinster also built in Cork is now in Canada and known as Madeline.



The Jetfoil is in Japan. Here it is on youtube renamed the Ginga.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZK0jTJ191I

Innisfallen

Haven't seen the video of the Cú na Mara before, great to see she is still going (she lasted a grand total of one season with the B&I).

I put together a piece on (most of) the B&I ships and where they ended up here, open to correction on any of those...

DWCommuter

Thats a great site you have there. Enjoyed it. Brought back a lot of memories.

corktina

i hadnt realised those ships were built in Cork.Whereabouts was the shipyard?

Innisfallen

corktina wrote: »

i hadnt realised those ships were built in Cork.Whereabouts was the shipyard?

The old Verolme Cork Dockyard...Rushbrook, Great Island (yard is used for repairs now - LÉ Eithne was the last ship to go down the ways and entered service in '84)

DWCommuter

Both the Connacht and the new Leinster were fine vessels. There were plaques with the builders name and launch dates near the reception areas. It was great to see ferries like that being built at Verolme.

corktina

Innisfallen wrote: »

The old Verolme Cork Dockyard...Rushbrook, Great Island (yard is used for repairs now - LÉ Eithne was the last ship to go down the ways and entered service in '84)

ah yes of course...thx for sharing...

Cookie_Monster

nice site.

Man they're so small compared to the ones now:eek:

DWCommuter

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

nice site.

Man they're so small compared to the ones now:eek:

They sure are. But back then they looked like great hulking monstrosities from the dockside and Irish built!

The Jetfoil was a great spectacle when viewed from Dollymount strand on its departure or approach to Dublin port. I was only on it once as far as Liverpool. Had to take a standard ferry back due to weather. The whole Jetfoil thing was a monumentally bad decision for the Irish sea. What were they thinking?

Sponge Bob

Great site Innisfallen, sadly missinig details on Galway Bay which is a right rogues gallery of operators

http://www.irish-ferries-enthusiasts.com/

101sean

There's a book that came out a year or so ago, "The Ships of Rosslare Harbour". that bought back many memories of rough crossings, remember wondering why one B&I boat stunk so much, realised why when it left Milford Haven for the open sea :rolleyes:

My earliest memories of the Fishguard -Rosslare route are of my father's car being craned off and having to drive on to a train to get off the pier at Rosslare, would have been 1964 I think.

Sponge Bob

there is a site that collects Galway bay ferry boat info whether they be passenger or cargo

http://www.galwayships.com/passenger_ships/index.html

EG The Aran Direct boats 'owned' by Jimmy Clancy. Or maybe by Clancys wife , Anglo Irish has been looking for millions off him for years



And the Doolin situation is explained as clearly as possible here

http://www.aranisland.info/ferries.html

DWCommuter

Sorry Sponge but the B+I had real boats and contributed to the economy on a wider scale. Clancy and his boats don't belong in the same thread.:D

Sponge Bob

Had you looked at Inisfallens site you would note that it is a very complete record of all ferries in Ireland with notably only the Galway Bay operators missing.

Evidently you did not look at Inishfallens site. Don't tell me what a ferry is , I was on the Herald of Free Enterprise a fortnight before it sank

Run_to_da_hills

I can remember the Munster as a kid with its destinct spiked funnel.

L1011

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Had you looked at Inisfallens site you would note that it is a very complete record of all ferries in Ireland with notably only the Galway Bay operators missing.

And Tory Island. And the second Arranmore operator; and thats only what I noticed. Theres a lot of operators to keep up with especially out to the Aran Islands!

BendiBus

Run_to_da_hills wrote: »

I can remember the Munster as a kid with its destinct spiked funnel.

Thanks for the pic. That brings back memories alright. Used to travel B+I to Liverpool for summer holidays almost every year in the 70s

I can still remember the excitement as the ferry came into view when we arrived at the port.

SimonMaher

Sponge Bob wrote: »

there is a site that collects Galway bay ferry boat info whether they be passenger or cargo

http://www.galwayships.com/passenger_ships/index.html

EG The Aran Direct boats 'owned' by Jimmy Clancy. Or maybe by Clancys wife , Anglo Irish has been looking for millions off him for years



And the Doolin situation is explained as clearly as possible here

http://www.aranisland.info/ferries.html

Spongebob,

What actually happened to Aran Direct? Was down there last summer and saw one of them tied up in port and one out at the island. Looked like fairly fancy vessels too!

Simon

Sponge Bob

Simply ran out of €€€s

Innisfallen

MYOB wrote: »

And Tory Island. And the second Arranmore operator; and thats only what I noticed. Theres a lot of operators to keep up with especially out to the Aran Islands!

I'll try an update that over the next few days...

penexpers

No mention of St. Patrick II either. Did a few journeys on that in the early 90s when we used to go on family holidays to France.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Saint_Patrick_II

L1011

penexpers wrote: »

No mention of St. Patrick II either. Did a few journeys on that in the early 90s when we used to go on family holidays to France.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Saint_Patrick_II

Its there: http://www.irish-ferries-enthusiasts.com/ifpast.php

Irish Ferries owned it and B&I just chartered it at times according to the Wiki.

Innisfallen

penexpers wrote: »

No mention of St. Patrick II either. Did a few journeys on that in the early 90s when we used to go on family holidays to France.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Saint_Patrick_II

If you traveled to France on her it would have been under Irish Ferries (ICG) and not B&I...She covered refits for Irish Ferries a few times (as well as P&O, Sealink and Tallink).

DWCommuter

Sponge Bob wrote: »

Had you looked at Inisfallens site you would note that it is a very complete record of all ferries in Ireland with notably only the Galway Bay operators missing.

Evidently you did not look at Inishfallens site. Don't tell me what a ferry is , I was on the Herald of Free Enterprise a fortnight before it sank

Yes I looked at the site in great detail and enjoyed it to. I was on a ferry that passed by the remains of the HOFE.:eek:

Anyway the thread is about B+I and its relations.;)

DWCommuter

BendiBus wrote: »

Thanks for the pic. That brings back memories alright. Used to travel B+I to Liverpool for summer holidays almost every year in the 70s

I can still remember the excitement as the ferry came into view when we arrived at the port.

Cork to Liverpool. Some trip. How long did it take?

BendiBus

DWCommuter wrote: »

Cork to Liverpool. Some trip. How long did it take?

Twas Dublin to Liverpool. It was about 7 hours if I remember correctly.

IIMII

I went out on the Grand canal basin with the Viking Splash tour in their wwII duck a few years ago and spotted the old CIÉ Aran Island's car ferry rusting away. At least I was 99% sure it was the old CIÉ ferry. Was it the Naomh Éanna?

Edit: It was

Cookie_Monster

That white boat in the foreground is moored in DL during the summer these days, looks evil and cool to me in a rusted out lame sorta way

L1011

Was that old CIE ferry RO-RO or some other form of loading/unloading?

Seeing as we're veering off topic, the photos of the 'new' boat for the Cork-Swansea route on Innisfallen's site are impressive. Its in fantastic internal nick (in the passenger areas anyway) for a second-hand vessel.

Victor

I never used a ferry until I was 14 and I don't think it was every with B&I, doing Rosslare-Le Harve, Cherbourg-Rosslare and Rosslare-Fishguard-Rosslare and Dublin-Holyhead-Dublin with ICG/IF and I presume Stena.

I do remember seeing off my brother on the Innisfallen (the fourth) from Cork in the 1970s. I'm not sure if it was from Penrose Quay or Tivoli.

MYOB wrote: »

Seeing as we're veering off topic, the photos of the 'new' boat for the Cork-Swansea route on Innisfallen's site are impressive. Its in fantastic internal nick (in the passenger areas anyway) for a second-hand vessel.

Many ships are refurbished every 10 years or so.

L1011

Victor wrote: »

I do remember seeing off my brother on the Innisfallen (the fourth) from Cork in the 1970s. I'm not sure if it was from Penrose Quay or Tivoli.
Many ships are refurbished every 10 years or so.

I know that, it just looks like it was refurbished very shortly before it was sold to Fastnet. The site says it was refitted in 2005, clearly Scandinavians exact less wear and tear on boats than Irish customers!

biblio

MYOB wrote: »

Was that old CIE ferry RO-RO or some other form of loading/unloading?

Seeing as we're veering off topic, the photos of the 'new' boat for the Cork-Swansea route on Innisfallen's site are impressive. Its in fantastic internal nick (in the passenger areas anyway) for a second-hand vessel.

Yes the Julia is in very good condition internally, I got a chance to look around onboard shortly after she arrived in Cork.
It was mentioned then that the reason for its good condition is due to the recent refit and the very high standards of one of its previous operators, Color Line (they had operated the ship for 17 years ,1991-2008)

Innisfallen

MYOB wrote: »

I know that, it just looks like it was refurbished very shortly before it was sold to Fastnet. The site says it was refitted in 2005, clearly Scandinavians exact less wear and tear on boats than Irish customers!

Thoses photos were taken a few weeks after she was delivered, I was honestly amazed she was in such good condition (only work needed onboard is the changing of signage and her "tax free supermarket" is a bit big, I'm sure it could be used for something else). The only major work that must be done is overhaul the engines, which is being done in Cork at the moment.

Colour Line always take good care of their ships (the Oscar Widle is also a previous Colour Line ship). Julia will be dry docked in Swansea at the end of the month.

IIMII

MYOB wrote: »

Was that old CIE ferry RO-RO or some other form of loading/unloading?

Seeing as we're veering off topic, the photos of the 'new' boat for the Cork-Swansea route on Innisfallen's site are impressive. Its in fantastic internal nick (in the passenger areas anyway) for a second-hand vessel.

No it wasn't ro-ro. I remember something about a crance and it only holding two three vehicles, but that's it. It was over 20 years ago, possibly 25 when I was on it.

SickCert

What ever became of the old Munster?

It was towed from Dublin many moons ago.

powerfarmer

SickCert wrote: »

What ever became of the old Munster?

It was towed from Dublin many moons ago.

It was operating out of Port Canaveral, Florida as the casino ship Ambassador II until 2008. I cant seem to find any reference to its whereabouts since then.

Jip

IIMII wrote: »

I went out on the Grand canal basin with the Viking Splash tour in their wwII duck a few years ago and spotted the old CIÉ Aran Island's car ferry rusting away. At least I was 99% sure it was the old CIÉ ferry. Was it the Naomh Éanna?

Edit: It was

It's still there, and the funny thing about it is that it still looks like that from the water side, but apparently residents of the apartments in the background complained about the state of it so whoever the owner is painted the land side of the boat so it looks nice and neat, kind of like the Two-Face of the boating world.

Sponge Bob

The Naomh Éanna was not a car ferry unlike the Carvair which was a car ferry

It was in fact a COW Ferry which sounds the same in certain parts of Dublin I suppose.

Below is a photo of a "Hare Krishna Ferry" which is neither a cow ferry nor a car ferry I will have ye know. This really excellent inland boat blog is here..... to complement the seagoing one.

http://irishwaterways.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/hare-krishna-ferry-01_resize.jpg

Tabnabs

Feast you eyes here!

http://www.simplonpc.co.uk/B-and-I_Line.html

shamwari

I have to say that this is perhaps one of the best threads I've read on boards in a very long time. I travelled on the MV Lenister on Dublin-Holyhead in '90 & '91.

But can anyone remember the boats which SeaLink used on Dun Laoghaire - Holyhead in the '80's. I remember an old boat called the Columba which to put it mildly, wasn't the nicest means of sea crossing ever devised. I think was scrapped after a fire sometime in the late 80's. Another boat which succeeded it was the St David. It was a lovely boat and entered service I think in 1982, but I don't know what came of it.

Tabnabs

A long an very interesting history of the St Columba

http://www.sealink-holyhead.com/sealink/ships/st_columba_sealink/home.html

Sponge Bob

They had an old banger called the Lord Warden on that route generally as a backup, I remember they once ran a Dun Laoghaire Fishguard service with it to keep it busy.

I have ascertained that to have been in 1978 from the link above and therefore I will have ye know that Sponge Bob is the probably the only one here who sailed from Dun Laoghaire to Fishguard as well as from Dun Laoghaire to Holyhead.

Innisfallen

shamwari wrote: »

Another boat which succeeded it was the St David. It was a lovely boat and entered service I think in 1982, but I don't know what came of it.

She operated various Sealink routes until 1986 until finially being based on the Norther Irish corridor. She became the Stena Caladonia, and is currently operating out of Belfast

KC61

It was interesting that for its entire life the St Columba had the largest passenger capacity of any ship in the whole Sealink fleet.

Vic_08

shamwari wrote: »

I have to say that this is perhaps one of the best threads I've read on boards in a very long time. I travelled on the MV Lenister on Dublin-Holyhead in '90 & '91.

But can anyone remember the boats which SeaLink used on Dun Laoghaire - Holyhead in the '80's. I remember an old boat called the Columba which to put it mildly, wasn't the nicest means of sea crossing ever devised. I think was scrapped after a fire sometime in the late 80's. Another boat which succeeded it was the St David. It was a lovely boat and entered service I think in 1982, but I don't know what came of it.

A rather unfair judgement on the St. Columba. IMO she was a fine ship and served the DunLaoghaire-Holyhead route very well for nearly 20 years, she was the mainstay of that very busy service from new in 1977 until the HSS replaced her in 1996. As originally built for British Rail the interior was by todays standards drab and functional but it was designed to cope with the huge passenger numbers the route carried in those days, as KC61 pointed out she had the largest passenger capacity in the fleet despite being a much smaller ship than many of those built later.

She was not scrapped in the 80's, after being succeeded on the DunLaoghaire route by HSS Stena Explorer she was sold to a Greek company and is still in service as a car/passenger ferry now sailing between Suez and Jeddah in Saudi Arabia.

http://www.faktaomfartyg.se/st_columba_1977.htm

DWCommuter

I was on the Columba during her first year of service on the Holyhead route. It was the only time though. I specifically remember the purple/pink leather effect seats in one of the lounges.

I never knew the St David was a relief vessel. Had a real scary trip on her from Holyhead in March '82.

SickCert

This was emailed to me about 6mths ago.

http://img62.imageshack.us/img62/9687/masarrah120407peramanik.jpg

KC61

This thread has got my curiousity going again. Delving deep into my book archive, and finally locating my copy of "Sealink" by Brian Haresnape published in 1982 by Ian Allan, I can confirm that the capacity of the St Columba (built in 1977) was a whopping 2,400 passengers and 334 cars. Nothing in the Sealink fleet came anywhere close. In fact not even the Ulysses can carry that many passengers!! Top speed was 19.5 kts, with a length of 129.2m and breadth of 21.2m.

The St. David could only carry 1,000 passengers with 309 cars and was built for the Dun Laoghaire-Holyhead route when there were in fact two ships on the route! It was one of a set of four identical ships built in 1979-1981 - the others being St Anselm & St Christopher (Dover-Calais), and the Galloway Princess (Stranraer-Larne).

Victor

Can people be careful with the oversized image use [/img]" rel="nofollow"> instead of [img]? [/img]

DWCommuter

KC61 wrote: »

This thread has got my curiousity going again. Delving deep into my book archive, and finally locating my copy of "Sealink" by Brian Haresnape published in 1982 by Ian Allan, I can confirm that the capacity of the St Columba (built in 1977) was a whopping 2,400 passengers and 334 cars. Nothing in the Sealink fleet came anywhere close. In fact not even the Ulysses can carry that many passengers!! Top speed was 19.5 kts, with a length of 129.2m and breadth of 21.2m.

The St. David could only carry 1,000 passengers with 309 cars and was built for the Dun Laoghaire-Holyhead route when there were in fact two ships on the route! It was one of a set of four identical ships built in 1979-1981 - the others being St Anselm & St Christopher (Dover-Calais), and the Galloway Princess (Stranraer-Larne).

Interesting figures there KC. From my experience the Columba had seats fitted all over the place, even along corridors/walkways. The St. David was more akin to the modern day vessel with lounges, shops, cafes etc. The Columba, while modern, was indeed a "cattle" boat in some respects. Definetaly built to cram as many on as possible.

L1011

My sister has a memory of some Dublin/Dun Laoighaire -> Holyhead boat getting thrown through the breakwater (through, not in to...) in Holyhead in a storm in the 80s or 90s, did that actually happen?

My ferry-using days (other than the Arranmore one) only started with the introduction of the Swift so I've not been on (m)any of the ones mentioned so far!