Hundreds of passengers on yesterday’s Manannan sailing to Liverpool spent almost eight hours on board the seacat after it developed a fault.

Manannan left Douglas at 2.46pm on Monday but developed what the Steam Packet called ’a technical issue’ around 60 minutes into her journey.

The issue was a failure of one of the components in the ride control system and, while a partial fix was possible, the vessel had to continue her journey on reduced power, which also ’slightly’ affected her ability to manoeuvre.

Port authorities in Liverpool advised that they would not allow Manannan to approach the River Mersey channel without assistance from a tug due to the reduced power issue.

The allocated tug was delayed and Manannan arrived on her berth at 10.30pm.

Steam Packet chief executive Mark Woodward said: ’We would like to sincerely apologise to all those affected by the failure of this component for the initial delay to their journey. While Manannan’s ability to manoeuvre has been slightly affected, the insistence by Mersey VTS that Manannan be escorted up the river to her berth by a tug has imposed a significant additional delay. We had already arranged for tug assistance at the berth.

’Manannan has no sailings scheduled for the next two days and the failed component will be quickly replaced on her return by our shore-based engineers.’