Isle of Man Steam Packet passengers sailing to Lancashire overnight endured a crossing of over six-and-a-half hours.

The Manxman left Douglas port at 9pm on Wednesday - 75 minutes later than planned.

The vessel managed to dock in Heysham four hours later than scheduled at 3.50am.

The return journey to the Isle of Man was due to depart from Heysham at 3.30am.

However, that sailing was forced to be put back due to a 'conflict' caused by the delay.

A spokesperson for the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company told Manx Radio: 'The late arrival into Heysham created a conflict with another company's schedule and there were insufficient numbers of dockers to load both vessels at once.

'For context, the dockers in Heysham work for the port, not IOMSPC as in Douglas.

'We were able to load passengers first to ensure they could get some rest, but backloading of freight took much longer than anticipated.

'We'll update on schedules as the day progresses.'

One passenger contacted Isle of Man Today's sister title Gef.im early on Thursday morning to speak about their experience.

They said : ‘It’s now 03.40 and we’ve just turned in the port and are reversing to moor up.

'Might get off at 04.00 if I’m lucky having turned up to check in at 6.30 last night.’

They also said that had they have known about the longer overnight sailing, they would have considered their travel and accommodation plans.

The Manxman eventually left Heysham around 7am this morning.