A hundred years ago the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company, which operated the mail-boat between Dun Laoghaire and Holyhead, used to be fined by the Post Office for every minute it was late across the storm-tossed Irish Sea.
On the eve of the third millennium, the high-speed catamaran now operated by Stena Line on the route is not allowed by international maritime rules to leave port when the waves are more than four metres high. Dun Laoghaire's berthing facilities can no longer take a conventional ferry. The result is that there will be no sailing to Holyhead until further notice. So much for progress.
Stena passengers with cars were being told yesterday afternoon that their best chance of getting away would be on conventional ferries through Belfast this afternoon or Rosslare tomorrow morning.
The company was strongly criticised by Mr John Kirkpatrick from Kilcoole, Co Wicklow, facing a 350-mile drive through Northern Ireland and Scotland to get back to his home near Manchester. His £40 compensation voucher from Stena would not even cover his extra petrol, he said.
What annoyed him and his fellow passengers most was the impossibility of getting any up-to-date phone information. Stena spokesman Mr Eamonn Hewitt admitted that the company's Irish phones had "crashed yesterday and we can't seem to get them up and going".
Passengers now have to ring a number in Stena's headquarters in Ashford, Kent (00441233615075). A recorded voice pleads with inquirers to "please be patient", while the large number of calls is dealt with.
Last week the company's Irish phones were working. Ms Louise Gordon from Rathfarnham, Co Dublin, had her 72-year-old mother booked to return via Holyhead to her home near Shrewsbury last Monday. She phoned Stena's information line constantly to try to make alternative travel arrangements, but could get no further than a recorded message telling her that all crossings were cancelled.
Foot passengers on yesterday's sailings were taken by coach to Dublin port for an Irish Ferries boat to Holyhead. However, for Ms Gordon's mother this would have meant nearly three hours waiting at Crewe for a local train in the early hours of a mid-winter morning. Ms Gordon asked one of the Stena desk clerks - who were notably patient and pleasant - if the company would pay the £25 taxi fare to get her mother home from Crewe. The clerk said this would not be possible.
Ms Amanda Wood was part of a group of nine from Liverpool, Birmingham and Stafford. It had taken them 25 hours to get to their holiday cottage in Co Wexford last week, after the outward Holyhead-Dun Laoghaire sailing was cancelled and the Fishguard-Rosslare boat had left nearly 16 hours late.
They too had been unable to get through to a Stena number to get any information and had decided to take a chance and drive to Dun Laoghaire. Now they would have to drive back to Wexford and take tomorrow's sailing from Rosslare to Fishguard.
"I asked to see a manager whom I could scream at, but nobody appeared," said one of Ms Wood's companions, a Liverpool lawyer.
For Stena, Mr Hewitt issued an "unreserved apology to customers". He said the company had just enough ferries to service its Irish routes, with no back-up in case of bad weather. It is not possible to transfer a ferry from the English Channel any more because a different Stena company now operates those routes. To transfer a ferry from a Scandinavian route would take too long and such a ferry might not fit Irish berths.