Second sailing cancelled by Brittany Ferries

Thousands of passengers face disruption this weekend after Brittany Ferries cancelled its Cork-Roscoff service for the second time in a week.

The company’s €165m ferry, the Port Aven, will be unable to sail due to continuing safety problems.

Last week, safety inspectors discovered a cracked sea water cooling valve, which had led to flooding in the ferry’s auxiliary engine compartment.

Around 2,000 passengers were due to sail on the crossing from Cork to Roscoff in France on Saturday night. Passengers in France will be left without the service from Roscoff to Ireland.

Brittany Ferries said it was putting alternative travel arrangements in place for its passengers.

General manager Hugh Bruton said: “At the moment, we’re making every effort to contact our passengers. We fully understand the disappointment we’re causing people because it’s their main holiday.”

Due to the high holiday demand, Irish ferries are nearly at full capacity and many stranded passengers will have use ferry transfers to Britain to travel to France or return to Ireland.

Mr Bruton said there were difficulties contacting French people who were on holidays around Ireland.

Repair work is continuing on the Port Aven ferry, which cut journey times to France from 14 hours to 11 hours when it was introduced to the Brittany Ferries fleet earlier this year. It can carry 2,400 passengers, 20 lorries and 650 cars at an average cruise speed of 27 knots.

“We are optimistic it will be ready next week. We have a team of engineers in France working around the clock,” Mr Bruton said.