The Ben-my-Chree’s sailing on Friday morning didn’t sail because of a technical fault.

She was back in service for the evening sailing but then adverse weather conditions hit sailings at the weekend.

Steam Packet managing director Brian Thomson said: ’We’d like to take this opportunity to apologise to all those who have been affected.

’We fully appreciate the inconvenience of changes to travel plans and work hard to minimise disruptions.

’Ben-my-Chree has an excellent reliability and punctuality record over many years of service (2021: 96.9% reliability and 94.3% punctuality) and all the ship’s crew and shore-based teams work round-the-clock to maintain that record by having her back in service as quickly as possible.

’MV Arrow was on standby to help with freight over the weekend in case the essential repairs were to take longer, again demonstrating the importance of fleet resilience in meeting the unique demands of the Isle of Man’s sea services needs.’