Continuing engine woes onboard the aging Red Eagle have resulted in another day of cancellations on Red Funnel’s vehicle ferry service.
It was first thing yesterday morning (Saturday) that Red Eagle developed an engine fault as she travelled up Southampton Water, operating the 06:30 sailing from East Cowes.
Anger has been expressed by those on board and the wider Island community as it was Red Eagle’s first day back in service after a prolonged period in dry dock, and then moored up awaiting a regulatory inspection.
This weekend was meant to be the start of the firm’s Summer timetable with a 3-boat operation, just in time for the 2-week half term holidays.
But there were cancellations throughout yesterday resulting in significant disruption. Red Funnel didn’t proactively text out any updates beyond 08:00 though…
Now, it has been confirmed that the disruption is to continue into today as engineers work to fix the technical fault.
The 05:00 and 08:00 sailings from Southampton have been cancelled alongside the 06:30 and 09:30 sailings from East Cowes.
It is unclear if there will be further cancellations, but those travelling to and from the Isle of Wight should plan for disruption.
UPDATE @ 08:49 – The 11:00 from Southampton and the 12:30 from East Cowes have now also been cancelled.
UPDATE @ 10:40 – Further cancellations have now been confirmed; the 14:00 and 17:00 sailings from Southampton have been scrapped for today, as have the 15:30 and 18:30 sailings from East Cowes.
UPDATE @ 14:20 – Red Funnel has now cancelled the 20:15 from Southampton and the 21:45 from East Cowes.
Red Funnel apologises for any inconvenience to your journey.
Of course there will be more delays, you can’t fix these ferries, they are way to old. What is it with the island, rubbish floating bridge, and rubbish ferries, lack of investment is the cause, all the profits from red funnel go into paying off debts. Speaking of which WHY NO ACCOUNTS FILED YET RED FUNNEL. They are STILL not showing up at companies house. Maybe the Island Echo could chase this up. They seem to be hiding something very big.
The accounts were filed 2nd April all 63 pages of them under their full name The Southampton Isle of Wight and South of England Royal Mail Steam Packet Company Limited
Could this problem be anything to do with the parts they ‘borrowed’ the other week when she was in Falmouth to keep the other one running here?
Why don’t they buy Korean or Japanese
Made to last.