MV Wight Light

MV Wight Light is a car and passenger ferry built for the British ferry operator Wightlink. She is in service between mainland England and the Isle of Wight.

History
United Kingdom
Name: MV Wight Light
Owner: Wightlink 2009 present
Operator: Wightlink
Port of registry: London
Route: Yarmouth to Lymington 25 February 2009 – 24 March 2015. 27 March 2015 – 1 April 15 (Portsmouth-Fishbourne) Replacement for retired MV St Helen 1 April 2015- present Yarmouth-Lymington.
Builder: Kraljevica, Croatia
Yard number: 550
Launched: 26 January 2008
In service: 25 February 2009
Homeport: London
Identification:
Status: In Service
General characteristics
Class and type: W-Wight Class RO-RO (Roll On Roll Off) Vessel.
Tonnage: 2,546 GT; 360 DWT
Displacement: 1,495 tonnes
Length: 62.4 m (204.7 ft)
Beam: 16.1 m (52.8 ft)
Draught: 2.30 m (7.5 ft)
Depth: 4.50 m (14.8 ft)
Decks: Two Passenger and two car decks ( One for cars & freight & one port side mezzanine for cars/vans only)
Installed power: 4x 740bhp (552 kW) Volvo D16MH 16 litre 6cyl diesels
Propulsion: 2 x Voith Schneider 21 R5/135 propeller units
Speed: 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph)
Capacity: 360 passengers, 65 cars, 110m of Freight Traffic
Crew: 10

History

Wight Light was designed by naval architects Hart Fenton & Company and constructed at the Kraljevica shipyard in Croatia. She was launched on 26 January 2008,[1] the first of three vessels commissioned by Wightlink to replace their ageing ferries Caedmon, Cenred and Cenwulf on the Yarmouth to Lymington route. Her sister ships are Wight Sky and Wight Sun, both of which are now in service.

Wight Light was due to be delivered in late August 2008 arriving in Lymington late on 1 September 2008. She entered service on 25 February 2009.

Service

Wight Light is in service between Yarmouth and Lymington. On 12 March 2009 Wight Light was taken out of service for repairs to her hydraulic ramp. 35-year-old Cenred was brought back from retirement.[2]

On 24 November 2014, Wightlink announced that they were going to change the way they configure their fleet in response to both falling demand on their Western Solent Lymington-Yarmouth ferry service and the need to find a replacement for their oldest vessel in their fleet, MV St Helen.[3] It was decided to transfer the Wight Light to the Portsmouth-Fishbourne route to replace the St Helen. Both sea and berthing trials were carried out in January–February and March 2015, allowing for the first commercial sailing of Wight Light on the Portsmouth-Fishbourne service on Friday 27 March 2015. Wight Light has since returned to operating the Yarmouth-Lymington route.

Footnotes
  1. "ALL'S WELD THAT ENDS WELD AS VESSEL SHRINKS". Isle of Wight County Press. 1 February 2008. Retrieved 1 April 2009.
  2. "Swan song for ferry after breakdown". Isle of Wight County Press. 13 March 2009. Retrieved 29 March 2009.
  3. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 12 June 2015. Retrieved 11 June 2015.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link) /
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