FERRY services between Yarmouth and Lymington will be suspended if wind speeds constantly exceed 20 knots, Wightlink boss, Keith Greenfield, confirmed today.

The move follows an engine fire onboard Wight Sky on Friday — the third time a fire has broken out on the vessel in the last 15 months.

In an exclusive interview with the County Press, Mr Greenfield said a team from Volvo, which supplied the engines, was currently working on the boat to try to find out what had gone wrong.

In the meantime, he said the company had decided to suspend services on the route if wind speeds exceeded 20 knots so less strain was put on the engines.

He said all three boats which served the route had experienced engine problems over the past 18 months.

Mr Greenfield said Wight Sky was likely to be out of service for three weeks while a replacement engine was fitted.

He said: "We are just so disappointed and frustrated.

"We are working so hard to improve our services and we have been let down once again by a serious engine failure and I do feel for our customers in West Wight.

"We will have to get to the bottom of it. We don't have these issues on our Portsmouth to Fishbourne route.

"We don't have a root cause at the moment."

"The most important thing is to get to the bottom of why we are having engine failures."

A two-boat service was supposed to start on the route on Sunday afternoon but Wight Sun experienced electrical problems after Saturday's torrential rain resulted in a circuit board being damaged.

It was being charged by a shore power point at Lymington at the time.

A one boat service is currently in operation on the route and that service is expected to continue tomorrow (Tuesday).

Mr Greenfield added any passengers who were booked on to the Yarmouth to Lymington route could use the Fishbourne to Portsmouth crossing in the event the Yarmouth service was cancelled.