Stena-Adventurer

Ferry giant Stena Line is asking workers to accept pay freezes and longer hours of working to avoid “large scale redundancies” and replacement with foreign crews. The company has written to its UK seafarers with a stark message about the trading performance of the firm, that employs around 400 staff in Holyhead. Bosses warn that £10m needs to be cut in 2014 from the cost of crewing and maintaining its Irish Sea vessels, which include the Holyhead-based superferry Adventurer, fast ferry Explorer and freight boat Stena Nordica. In a letter by head of HR Mick Ambrose obtained by the Daily Post, the company said one way to resolve the situation was moving to a non-UK crewing model, with large scale redundancy of the existing crews and paying new staff below the UK minimum wage. But Stena Line, which has not made an operational profit in Europe since 2003, say this can be avoided with the cooperation of workers and unions by a major overhaul of pay and conditions. The first stage would see a pay freeze in 2014, a delay to pay harmonisation and the technical management of the ships to be out-sourced to the Northern Marine Group.

On June 28, 2013, a man has been airlifted from the "Stena Adenturer" to St James’s Hospital in Dublin, after a medical emergency on board the ferry around 40 kilometres out to sea from the city in the morning. The Dublin Coastguard helicopter was dispatched at around 9.45 after the man was taken ill with heart problems on board the "Stena Adventurer", which was sailing to Holyhead. The patient was then flown to the Dublin 8 facility, and that the helicopter touched down at around 10.40.