A fierce storm and a major ferry port knocked out of action for over a month. A parliamentary investigation into the incident has uncovered that a critical piece of UK infrastructure is surprisingly fragile, and little has been done to create redundancy on a main artery linking Ireland and the UK.
On the night of 6-7 December 2024, the British Isles and much of Western Europe were hit by Atlantic Storm Darragh, a powerful extratropical cyclone packing wind gusts of up to 96 mph. The worst of the storm hit Ireland and the UK, causing widespread damage and shutting roads, rail and airports.
Storm Darragh whipped around the south coast of Ireland into the Irish Sea and gathered strength as it funnelled between Ireland and Wales. The last port of call for this blustery visitor was Holy Island, landfall for the port of Holyhead. The terminal is the shortest and busiest trade route between Britain and Ireland.
Ferry cancellations due to weather are nothing out of the ordinary, but Holyhead suffered damage to its infrastructure that put all ferry operations out of action. What was said to have happened?
Storm or a vessel?
The shutdown was initially attributed to storm damage, but the port suffered only very localised damage to one of its piles, which was knocked over. Questions started being asked about whether a vessel strike was to blame more than the storm itself. Against this backdrop, the Economy, Trade, and Rural Affairs Committee of the Welsh Parliament set up an inquiry into the incident. “I appreciate that there have been various suggestions about what happened,” said Chairman Andrew Davies when introducing the inquiry at a public hearing. “I heard various things on the radio. Talk about collisions to the terminal jetty.”
Contact damage
The Ro-Ro ‘berths’ at Holyhead are essentially a series of fenders mounted on steel piles to create a berthing line to tie up vessels perpendicular to the shore. The left structure is designated Terminal 3, and the right is T5. A centre pile section is for mooring gang access. At the shore, there are two Ro-Ro ramps for loading and unloading vessels.
Certainly, the communication that came out of Holyhead on the morning of 7 December put all the blame on Storm Darragh. However, it has emerged that the collapsed pile at the port was caused by a vessel strike. “There were two berthing incidents,” said Ian Davies, Head of UK Port Authorities at Stena Line, explaining that ferries had struck the dock structure. “One on the sixth and the following one on the seventh on Holyhead Terminal 5. There was contact on the first one. T5 was then inspected. Then, on the following sailing, there was another contact damage.”
“On the second contact, pile D2.2 collapsed,” said Andrew Davies. “D2.2 is the pile closest to the linkspan. At that point, the port was closed.” Committee members asked questions about whether the storm or seamanship was to blame for the collisions, but Andrew Davies declined to provide specifics. “All we can say at this time is there is an ongoing investigation into the actual cause, and part of that is a claim going on,” he said. “I can confirm there were two berthing incidents, one on 6 December and one on 7 December, immediately prior to the collapse of D2.2. There are contacts all the time. The berth is designed to take slow-speed contact. These contacts happen all the time, as the vessels come in.”
Scrambling for alternatives
The importance of Holyhead to the Welsh economy should not be underestimated. That a storm should take it out of service is a serious matter. “The port now handles 1.8 million passengers,” said Ian Davies. “400,000 lorries, 400,000 cars. It is a major hub, and it is resilient because of where it lies, in that very important east-west corridor.”
Closing Holyhead was an incident as major for freight logistics as the Heathrow outage in March was for passenger movements. Trade between Ireland and the UK was worth £78.8 billion in the last full year, making Ireland the UK’s sixth biggest trade partner worldwide. Sixty per cent of that trade went via Holyhead.
Most of the 1000 goods vehicles using Holyhead every day arrive via the A55 highway, along the North Wales coast. Switching that traffic to other routes was a priority, along with finding alternative ferry capacity. Authorities in Scotland were praised for a rapid response, making arrangements for transport on the Cairnryan – Belfast route.
Tardy response
Rather damningly, the UK Road Haulage Association (RHA) highlighted that the Scottish Government began round-table discussions on 12 December. However, the first time the RHA was contacted by a Welsh civil servant, according to their evidence at the enquiry, was 24 December. However, independently, a domestic solution was offered via South Wales.
“We quickly declared a critical incident so that we could balance the request for additional capacity,” said Anna Malloy, the Communications and Marketing Director at the Port of Milford Haven, which manages the ferry terminal at nearby Pembroke. “As the UK’s largest energy port, responsible for around twenty per cent of the inflow of energy into the UK, we had to be mindful that there was no disruption to that. We were obviously very supportive. We were really pleased that, within a matter of six days, we were able to accommodate a different ferry with an extra fifty per cent capacity on that route, whilst not causing any disruption to energy [shipments].”
It was more than just shipping capacity that was required. Multiple agencies, including the local council, rallied round to get an additional round trip sailing dispatched by 7 January. “We identified that we can accommodate an additional daily ferry sailing from Pembroke Dock Ferry Terminal on a temporary basis,” said Tom Sawyer, Chief Executive at the Port of Milford Haven. “[We have] been working in close collaboration with the [UK] Department for Transport, Welsh Government and [operator] Irish Ferries to identify ways in which it can support the national effort to move ferry traffic between Britain and Ireland.”
“If you look on the west coast, it’s actually quite remarkable how the ports were able to respond and over to the vessel operators, the shipping companies, that decide what they can do to move vessels infrastructure around,” said Richard Ballantyne, the Chief Executive at British Ports Association. “During the pandemic, and even with the Brexit transition preparations on the east coast, it was far more difficult to move vessels. There are some good lessons to come out of this, as well as the challenging points around communications.”
Redundancy, and a Plan B
It is clear from the inquiry hearing that Holyhead is such an important link in the supply chain between Britain and Ireland that a lot more consideration needs to be given to how to respond to a disruption. The committee heard how ports need to plan, using simulations and trials, to berth new Ro-Ro vessels. Given that the berthing structure at Holyhead has shown to be perhaps not very resilient, much more consideration needs to be given to having a Plan B ready in the event of a disruption.
Liam Lacey from the Irish Maritime Development Office said in hindsight there were certainly things ferry operators and ports could do differently. “I think there are learnings from what took place in terms of the compatibility of certain vessels in ports. So, I think, if we had our time over again, we would have tried to have berthing trials completed well in advance. Shipping companies will accept this now, that ordinarily, when they have the opportunity to do berthing trials in alternative ports, they should do that so that they’re ready to move if and when an emergency arises.”
Getting back on schedule
For the time being Holyhead is ‘partially operational’. An amended sailing timetable has been put in place to spread calls across the day at one berth, allowing the full capacity of services to resume, albeit at less convenient times.
Repairs will take time, and the removal of the fallen 120-tonne pile will, in itself, be a major engineering challenge.
However, the port is confident that it can complete the work by 1 July, assuming no unseasonal storms. Perhaps even more challenging will be recovering the lost traffic, which has been picked up by other ports.
*This article first appeared in the April print issue of WorldCargo News