Wightlink are scrapping their weekend overnight sailings on the Ryde Pier Head to Portsmouth Fastcat service following a 3 month trial, but more sailings have been announced for the Yarmouth-Lymington route in Summer 2020.
It has been announced today (Friday) that next summer there will be more sailings at weekends between Lymington and Yarmouth. On average, there will be an extra 16 round-trips every weekend on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays from April to the end of August, when 3 ferries will be in operation.
There will also be additional sailings on busy days such as the Thursday before Isle of Wight Festival.
Keith Greenfield, Chief Executive at Wightlink, says:
“We are delighted to provide extra sailings this summer between Lymington and Yarmouth to meet increasing demand from Islanders and holidaymakers.
“Next summer, there will be more than 300 extra round-trip crossings carrying another 45,000 vehicles on this scenic route.”
Unfortunately, following a 3 month summer trial, Wightlink has decided to cease its weekend overnight sailings on the FastCat service between Portsmouth Harbour and Ryde Pier Head.
The company say that fewer people than expected wanted to travel at that time.
Wightlink’s overnight car ferries will continue to depart Portsmouth at 00:00, 03:00 and 05:00 and Fishbourne at 01:00, 04:00 and 06:00.
Those looking to travel in 2020 can now book online for the Portsmouth-Fishbourne car ferry and Portsmouth Harbour-Ryde Pier Head FastCat services. The Lymington-Yarmouth timetable is being finalised and will be available shortly.
Good news for West Wight and we should celebrate that, but hardly a success Wightlink, we are back to the pre Macquarie Bank days, where we should be. Wightlink is West Wight’s A1, and the ferry service needs to think more that way. Good news for West Wight, do feel sorry for the late night reveller to Cowes though…
most of the people traveling on the late night fastcats were drunks and it was the reason wightlink cancelled them first time round. Annoying for those that work late in portsmouth as it means the car ferry again.
They could easily offset the cost of running later fastcats, by dropping a couple of half hourly ones during the day. The staff (quite rightly) do not wish to deal with pissheads, however, wightlink can afford to employ qualified security staff at the terminals after 2100 to deal with these people and prevent them from entering the terminals, which ensures wightlink staff do not even see steaming drunk, arrogant people.
If we had a real police force they could have a coppa checking in on the fast cat lobbies from time to time making their presence felt.
Correct – a real and physical presence takes away most of the problems.
In days gone by, those of the first catamarans, the police used to pick up all the drunks, fighters and troublemakers in Ryde and, if they were from the mainland, drive them to the pierhead and dump them there amongst the law abiding passengers just to get them off their patch, expecting the, then, Sealink staff to deal with them.
That was the real police presence not some rose tinted nostalgia.
Maybe wight link want a fixed link built? Seems to be making a good case for it. 😀
Don’t help us who have to get home from work at weekends