An incident involving a lorry and a vehicle trailer on board Red Eagle has resulted in the cancellation of several cross-Solent sailings this morning (Thursday).
The incident occurred at around 09:00 and has seen operations at the East Cowes terminal grind to a halt.
As a result of the issue, the 09:30, 10:30 and 11:30 from East Cowes and the 10:00 from Southampton have been cancelled.
Island Echo understands that the incident has seen a lorry drive onto a vehicle trailer being towed by a Ford Ranger.
Red Funnel has apologised for any inconvenience caused.
UPDATE @ 09:35 – A spokesperson for Red Funnel has said:
“An incident occurred this morning involving two vehicles on board Red Eagle, in East Cowes, which means that Red Eagle must remain alongside whilst we await specialist expertise. As a result, we have had to initiate a full suspension of our vehicle ferry service.
“Customers are being kept updated with revised sailing times and we apologise for the inconvenience caused, which is beyond our control. We are working hard to resolve the situation and will provide the next update by 1030.”
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UPDATTE @ 10:56 – The service has now resumed, with the 10:30 and 11:30 sailings from East Cowes reinstated.
A spokesperson has said:
“Thanks to the swift action of our team, we are pleased to confirm that the two vehicles have been safely removed from Red Eagle and our vehicle ferry service has resumed in full.
“We are communicating directly with customers and would like to thank passengers for their patience while we resolved the incident.”
I’ll offer my expertise.
The damage appears to be minimal so drive both the vehicles off the ferry then sort it out thereby not disrupting hundreds of passengers for the rest of the day.
Agree or move the ferry out to allow another ferry to berth. Health and safety has gone crazy.
It is a bit more than minimal, the whole of the trailer is under the truck
That would mean one using their brain, majority of
numpties don’t have them thesedays.
Now we have numpty motorists on ferries, numpties
are not only on island roads.
Very worrying
Loading of ro-ro ferries is supposed to be carefully supervised by vessel staff so it is unclear how this could happen. But it does not fill you with confidence that Wightlink intend reducing the operational staff on board their ferries as part oftheir new business model. It is impossible not to be concerned that safety will be compromised.