Update
The opening of the Cairnryan Stena
Ferry Terminal 21st November 2011 lead
to the closure of the Ferry Terminal in
Stranraer, ending a service
between Stranraer and Belfast that
began in 1862. Stranraer harbour has
now been redeveloped.
The last three Stena ships on that
route were withdrawn from service and
replaced by the 2 sisters ships, Stena
Superfast VII & VIII.
The ships taken out of service were
the 7,000 ton Stena Caledonia, 9,000
ton Stena Navigator, and 19,000 ton
Stena Voyager.
Stena
Voyager was a jet engine powered 40
knot plus catamaran that would have
been able to do the new crossing
between Cairnryan & Belfast in well
under 2 hours. This ship had been
operated between Stranraer &
Belfast from entering service in
1996.
The jet engines high fuel usage led
to this ship being taken out of service
after the service between Cairnryan and
Belfast began in 2011, with it being
scrapped in 2013.
Her sister ship Stena
Discovery was sold in 2010 to a
company in Venezuela, then scrapped in
Turkey 2015.
A second sister ship Stena
Explorer is now moored in
Turkey.
These were the largest fast ferries
in the world, the shipping equivalent
of Concorde, a fantastic design, just
too expensive to run.
Stena
Superfast VII & VIII are now
the largest ferries to have been
operated from Scotland. They are 30,285
tons, 669 feet long, with 10 decks and
can travel about 30 knots, crossing
between Cairnryan and Belfast in about
2 hours 15 minutes. They were
originally built for the Estonian ferry
company Tallink in 2001 for the route
between Tallinn (Estonia), Helsinki
(Finland) & Rostock (Germany).
These ships are ice class 1A Super that
allows them to operate in extreme ice
conditions. Hopefully they will not be
encountering any ice in the Irish
Sea.
The new ships have onboard
facilities such as free WiFi, free
movies, restaurant and exclusive Stena
Plus Lounge. You can also relax in
their Nordic Spa, with a jacuzzi &
sauna. Their POD lounge is an
interactive zone with all the latest in
technology from iPads to Xboxes.
The previous largest ferries
operating out of Scotland were on the
run between Rosyth and Zeebrugge, these
included 2 superfast ferries at about
30,000 tons, then from 2009, the
Scottish
Viking at 27,000 tons. Scottish
Viking was replaced in 2010 by an
11,000 ton freight only ferry named Tor
Finlandia, with that service ending in
2018 after a fire on the ship.
The largest P&O
ferries operating between Cairnryan
and Larne/ Ireland are about 21,000
tons. The next largest ferry operating
out of Scotland is the Hrossey
at 11,700 tons, traveling between
Aberdeen, Orkney and Shetland
Isles.
The largest ferries running to the
Scottish western Islands are the 8,680
ton Loch
Seaforth running between Ullapool
in Northwest Scotland and Stornoway on
the Isle of Lewis, and the 5,200 ton
Caledonian
Isles traveling between Ardrossan
and the Isle of Arran.
The largest ferry operating out of
the UK is the P&O Pride of
Rotterdam at about 60,000 tons,
operated between Hull and
Rotterdam.
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