A charter vessel will replace Wightlink’s FastCat service on Wednesday whilst the Wight Ryder is repaired.
News broke this morning (Tuesday) that the Ryde – Portsmouth Service was suspended, not because of the weather but because of damage sustained by the vessel last night.
It has since been confirmed by Wightlink, that on the last journey yesterday the boat hit a piece of debris in the water and damaged its propeller. The other FastCat vessel is also currently in for scheduled maintenance, throwing another spanner into the works.
As a result of these cancellations and the weather-related issues facing Hovertravel there is only 1 route to Portsmouth currently, the Fishbourne – Portsmouth vehicle ferry.
A temporary timetable will be in place with service starting at 05:45 from Ryde and 06:45 from Portsmouth Harbour and will adhere to the usual FastCat timetable.
Visit wightlink.co.uk/updates for more information.
Wightlink apologises for the changes to your travel plans.
UPDATE @ 10:10 – Wightlink has advised that journey times may be slightly longer than usual with those needing to make a connection train in Portsmouth told to possibly travel earlier than planned if possible.
UPDATE @ 11:18 – Wightlink have confirmed that the crossing time of the charter vessell will be between 30-35 minutes as opposed to the usual 22-minute crossing.
There’s only one Fast Cat ????
According to the previous news article covering the collision with debris, the other one is mid maintenance overhaul so also unavailable.
Really?, not what the Cat travellers were intimating this morning at the Hovertravel terminal!
Got told hit wood and damage Hull cost me day off work as hover travel only told us 5min before it was ment to leve its not running
Thats normal
Good chance to brush up on your spelling and punctuation then!
The other one is having its annual….
One question mark would have been perfectly adequate.
One damaged and one in for a refit .
At least they have arranged an alternative, OK may take a bit longer ,but well done for sorting it out.
Look on vessel finder and that will tell you where the cats are
Funny how a small local company has staff and vessels available at short notice, perhaps they should run this service permanently!
Well done Wightlink you can charter a vessel …. No problem, .. here tomorrow but cannot sort the ongoing essential staff problem.. that’s used as a weekly excuse for the rubbish service we have to put up with ..
just looked on vessel finder at 07:27 9/11/22 and both wight rider 1 and 2 are at the terminal in Portsmouth
where they are expected to be – they won’t pay out for expensive dry docking until they actually need to undertake work on the parts of the boat that are actually in the water. 99% of the annual refit is on the above waterline part of the boat and will be done right where it is – alongside in pompey harbour.
if they need to replace the prop then they may have to put it in a dry dock and that means weeks with a charter boat
Could go by Red Funnel from Cowes to Southampton (Red Jet) or East Cowes to Southampton (car ferry)?
Surely if you’re running a two boat service then you need a third, standby boat because, logically, there’s always going to be a time when one or other of the boats has to go for a regular service, maintenance or, as in the case here, an accident?
Train companies don’t appear to have the exact number of trains to run the service, there always seems to be some in sidings etc which can be used in emergencies or to cover for maintenance etc.
It’s probably a bit like a company having the exact number of staff capable of running a ferry and no-one to take over in cases of illness etc. Oh, that’s what Wightlink do, isn’t it?
Oh no, all these cancellations. How will people cope, geez. Learn to adapt…snowflakes. lol