OnTheWight has been pursuing for some weeks the ability for those travelling on the Isle of Wight ferries to stay in their vehicles during journeys, during the Coronavirus outbreak.
Red Funnel has announced today (Wednesday) that it has worked with the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) to identify exceptional solutions to support the government’s social distancing guidance in response to COVID-19 and respond to passengers’ requests to remain in vehicles during crossings.
(Wightlink have also been allowed to relax rules on staying in cars – and are offering an hourly service, far more than Red Funnel currently. OnTheWight has asked Red Funnel what is restricting Red Funnel from enabling more sailings to be ‘stay in car’ – see their response below)
“Vehicle deck only” crossings
Whilst safety legislation requires passengers vacate vehicle decks for the duration of the crossing, Red Funnel is pleased to announce that from Thursday 19th March it will operate a number of special “vehicle deck only” crossings, whereby the main passenger accommodation areas will be closed, and passengers must remain in their vehicles.
This “all or nothing” solution requiring all passengers to remain in vehicles is rooted in ensuring that robust safety, fire control and evacuation procedures can be maintained. A number of additional passenger safety and operational controls are also required to allow this exceptional and unprecedented exemption, and instructions will be clearly communicated to passengers prior to boarding.
Four crossings
Until further notice, the following vehicle ferry crossings will be restricted to “vehicle deck only” at this time, with other services operating normally:
- Departing Southampton: 18:00, 21:00
- Departing East Cowes: 19:30, 22:30
Vehicle space will be restricted on these crossings to due to requirements for larger gaps between vehicles as a means of ensuring adequate pathways should there be a need to evacuate. We anticipate being able to extend this exceptional service in coming days and will update our website accordingly.
Collins: “An unprecedented exception”
Fran Collins, CEO, said:
“We’d like to thank the MCA for working with us to identify solutions to allow our passengers this option during this exceptional time. Many of our customers have been in touch in recent weeks to request that this option be available and while we empathised with their requests we were legally unable to oblige until now.
“The MCA’s decision to provide a temporary exemption to this aspect of the safety code which applies to our operation is unprecedented and required a great deal of cooperation and lateral thinking from all parties. I’m very pleased that we are now able to provide a solution to our customers and thank our customers for their patience as we seek to adapt our operation as quickly and efficiently as we can.”
Find out more
Red Funnel plans to publish further guidance on around vehicle deck only crossings on its Website later today. Further questions and answers will be published on the operator’s Covid-19 Travel Questions FAQs page.
Why the current limitation?
With Wightlink offering many more crossings where passengers can stay in their cars, OnTheWight asked Red Funnel what was stopping them from doing the same.
Fran Collins, CEO, Red Funnel Ferries said,
“In order to permit the exemption of legislation to permit passengers to travel in their vehicles, strict imitations are required on the amount of vehicle traffic we can carry. This is to ensure that there is enough space between vehicles to ensure that passengers are able to evacuate their vehicles and ultimately the ship in case of an emergency or fire situation.
“At the moment, crossings in the coming week are already pre-booked with essential travel and freight, and the traffic levels are too high for us to be able to offer the ability for all passengers to remain in their vehicles. As we move forward, we anticipate expanding the number of ‘vehicle deck only’ crossings in order to provide more options and flexibility.
“For the time being we are doing the very best we can do adapt our operations and safety procedures under this short notice and we’re very pleased to be able to be able to make this option available, albeit on a limited basis at this time. We will continue to keep our customers updated as and when more crossing options become available.”
Appeal from MP
Yesterday the Isle of Wight MP, Bob Seely, asked for the Government to support the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA) relaxing their rules to allow correct social distancing (as advised by Boris Johnson in Monday’s announcement).
Bob asked for ferry passengers to be able to remain in their vehicles whilst travelling across the Solent. Last week the MCA stood firm on passengers not remaining in vehicles.
