Steam Packet boss Brian Thomson has confirmed the process to replace the Manannan is underway.
He was speaking at the government conference when he provided the update on the company’s 26-year-old fastcraft.
Mr Thomson said: “She looks like a sleek modern vessel, but actually she’s an old girl and we will need to start looking at a replacement sooner rather than later.
“That process has kind of already started internally. We are building a sort of concept of what we think the replacement vessel needs to look like.
“Of course there’s 85,000 people have a different opinion on that so we’ll try to take that into account like we did with the Manxman.”
He added that the challenge will be delivering a green vessel that complies with national and international regulations.
2030?
Under the sea services agreement, Manannan is currently due to be replaced by the end of 2027, which now seems unlikely to happen.
In April this year, the company’s business plan for 2024 showed that the company’s assumed budget for a replacement fast craft is £25m and gave a new assumed delivery date for this of 2030.
By this point Manannan would be into her 30s. For absolutely no helpful context at all, she’d be the same age as Manchester United midfielder Casemiro is now.
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