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Worsening ferry chaos ‘is driving people off islands’

Mike Wade, Greig Cameron

Friday October 08 2021, 12.01am, The Times

Transport

The Western Isles sustainable development committee said that ferry services had been “horrendous” all summer

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/worsening-ferry-chaos-is-driving-people-off-islands-x830g3pk5

 

The turmoil engulfing Scotland’s ferry service is fuelling island depopulation and leaving remote businesses “teetering on the brink”, according to community leaders, who are considering a buy-out of sailing routes.

Almost one in five sailings on one of the busiest routes were disrupted this year — three times the volume of cancellations from 2017 — with business owners condemning the “complete shambles” presided over by the SNP.

The disastrous contract to build new two ferries at Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow which saw the yard fall into administration leaving both vessels unfinished with costs trebling to £300m has strained the network to breaking point.

Alf Baird, a former professor of maritime business at Napier University who sits on Transport Scotland’s Expert Ferry Group, said the publicly-owned fleet, owned by Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL), “could have been totally replaced for the £300 million that is being spent on the two boats at Ferguson”.

Scotland’s ferry debacle has become a key political battleground with Nicola Sturgeon last month accused of creating an “international humiliation” after a lucrative new ferry contract was set to be awarded to overseas firms rather than Scottish shipbuilders.

 

The failures of Caledonian MacBrayne (Calmac), which runs most of the publicly subsidised ferry routes in Scotland, on the Arran to Ardrossan crossing have robbed the island economy of an estimated £7.8 million, plunging its tourism business into crisis, damaging recruitment and affecting community morale.

Linda Johnston, the co-founder of Brodick’s Auchrannie resort, Arran’s largest private employer, said soaring cancellations are accelerating depopulation.

“Some people just get up and leave,” she said. “They feel they just can’t go on, maybe because it is hard to access hospital treatment, or they find it hard to get together with friends and family.”

Worries about the impact of the “dysfunctional” ferry service on population decline are not confined to Arran.

The crisis has prompted some island communities to consider taking over ferry operations along the lines of community land buyouts, according to Roy Pedersen, a consultant and ferries’ expert, who welcomed the plan.

“If crews were based on the islands with their families that would increase populations,” he said. “Taking control also puts islanders’ destiny in their own hands and they can run the services to suit their requirements.”

Depopulation was found to be the “top priority” among the country’s 93 island communities, according to the Scottish Government’s 2019 strategy document, the National Island Plan.

Ministers proposed an “island bond” in August, offering £50,000 to encourage young people to stay or move to an island. It was an absurd proposal, said Joe Reade, of the Mull and Iona Ferry Committee, because it overlooked the key issue: “the chronic dysfunction of the ferry service”.

 

“If you are talking about depopulation and want people to stay on the islands, there needs to be a transport system they can depend on,” he said. “What is the point of encouraging a family or a business to operate from an island, if you can’t get your goods off the island?”

Norman MacDonald, vice chairman of the Western Isles sustainable development committee, said the ferry service had been “horrendous” all summer.

He added: “The state of preparedness of the fleet in the event of any breakdown is shocking.

“If you can’t get a guaranteed on-and-off the island service, it’s not good for encouraging people to come here, and it doesn’t encourage them to stay, because you need consistency. It’s certainly a contributory factor in depopulation.”

The Arran Development Trust undertook an analysis of census data, local authority surveys and the electoral roll and found the Clyde islands - Arran, Cumbrae and Bute - accounted for 23 percent of Scotland’s total island population, but experienced 61 percent of population decline.

Arran’s population has fallen by 10 percent since the beginning of the century, compared to a gradual rise across Scotland over the same period

The development trust attributes the island’s difficulties to inequalities in public transport, housing and healthcare, all exacerbated by failures in the ferry service.

 

Residents accept stormy conditions as a reason for cancellations, but repeated mechanical issues in an ageing fleet, as well as the withdrawal of one of Arran’s two summer ferries for five weeks, have caused dismay.

Critics of Calmac, including a former minister in the Scottish government who declined to be named, say its senior management team has no maritime experience, and allege that none of its board live on an island. Cmal, the public company which owns the fleet, are dismissed as disastrously ineffective for its failure to maintain the fleet.

On Arran, there has been a catalogue of expensive miscalculations including the layout of the £30 million Brodick ferry pier, opened in 2018, which is not designed for the existing Calmac fleet and creates difficulties docking in an east wind.

The new Glen Sannox ferry, which is vastly over budget and expected to enter service in 2022 after a four year delay, s too big for Ardrossan harbour

Work to redevelop the harbour has slipped a year, to next autumn, with completion now due in 2024. Costs have risen by 17 percent to £35 million.

The frequency of cancellations has exacerbated the problems of the pandemic for employers like Auchrannie, an employee-owned business rooted in the community.

Johnston, who co-founded the resort in 1988, said: “We have tried commuting in housekeepers, but they give up because half the time they can’t travel to us because a ferry has been cancelled.

“We are teetering on the brink - the business is providing for the whole community, and if business can’t get staff and keep running, the community will suffer.”

She added: “They (the government and Calmac) can’t understand these difficulties. We have been telling them for years, well before covid. We asked for additional capacity and changes to the service, but they never happened.

“The Glen Sannox is four years overdue and they have not even started to amend the port at Ardrossan. It is a complete shambles.”

 

A Transport Scotland spokesman said: “Whilst the management and maintenance of the vessels is an operational issue for CalMac, we recognise communities’ frustration during periods of disruption. We are doing everything that we can to support CalMac to maximise available capacity across the network.

“We acknowledge the CMAL fleet is aging and as such we are delivering new tonnage to support our communities by working with CMAL, CalMac, MSPs, community representatives and others to develop investment programmes - at least £580 million over the next five years - for major vessels and small vessels.

“We are also looking at other credible, affordable and viable options to improve resilience, such as the recent short term charter of the MV Arrow on the Stornoway-Ullapool route and the deal to buy the MV Utne to operate on the Oban-Craignure route. Previous CMAL announcements on the Islay vessels procurement and the Small Vessel Replacement Programme are further evidence. However, it must be recognised that finding suitable vessels on a short term basis is challenging in the current market.”

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FERRIES INVESTIGATION

‘It feels like going backwards when boats don’t turn up’

Ferry cancellations disrupt supplies of everything from food to Covid jabs and make life on Arran harder for many businesses, Mike Wade writes

Mike Wade

Friday October 08 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

Linda Johnston, founder of the Auchrannie resort in Brodick, Arran, says the cancellations have an enormous impact on the island’s economy and life

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/it-feels-like-going-backwards-when-boats-dont-turn-up-lkbsjnkhn

 

The view over Auchrannie to Goat Fell is magnificent on a warm autumn day. Clouds linger on the summit but far below the woods are bathed in sunshine and the bay beyond is a deep blue. Screw up your eyes and this could be a Mediterranean island, and not Arran in the Firth of Clyde.

But there is trouble in paradise. The ferry service to the mainland is a byword for unreliability and hoteliers, farmers and other local businesses have borne the brunt, along with the tourists, who for decades have kept Arran’s economy afloat.

Linda Johnston, who co-founded Auchrannie resort, knows how her employees and guests have been affected, as Calmac, the publicly owned ferry operator, has failed to deliver. There have been almost 600 ferry cancellations, many at short notice, and all “have an enormous impact on life and business on the island”, Johnston said. “Challenges just land at your feet almost every day, what with ferries cancelled and all the other things we suffer at the moment.”

Auchrannie had to constrain occupancy this summer, the first time since this employee-owned company was founded 1988 and is still restricting occupancy to 83 per cent, at a time of the year when the resort would be full. “It feels,” said Johnston, “like we are going backwards. That has never happened before.”

The unreliable ferry affects the to-and-fro of hauliers, workers, medics and others. “It makes everything seem like paddling through mud,” Johnston said. “You can’t tackle a refurbishment when boats don’t turn up with what you need on them.

“We have team members who get stuck here, and team members stuck on the other side who can’t get over.”

 

David Henderson, whose family own Kilpatrick Farm on the west of the island, has about a thousand sheep and 50 cows, buying and selling his stock on the mainland, where markets take place on specific days. “You can’t just say, ‘Oh the boat’s not sailing today, I’ll take them tomorrow.’” he said. “If it’s stormy, fair enough, but if they’ve broken down or there’s no space, that stuff is frustrating.”

Henderson is contemptuous of attempts by Calmac, Cmal, Transport Scotland and Scottish ministers to get to grips with the issues.

He says the terminal at Brodick is not designed for the present fleet but built for the Glen Sannox, the vessel delayed at Ferguson’s shipyard for four years. The new vessel is so big, it requires Ardrossan harbour to be remodelled, at a cost of £35 million.

“The whole thing, Brodick, Ardrossan, the boat — the three things you need to sail — and each is rubbish. If it wasn’t so serious you’d laugh. Why is someone not being held to account for this? The moment you mention it to politicians, they say, ‘We’ve given you tens of millions of pounds, what more do you want?’ What we want is value for money.”

 

Tom Tracey, a retired local businessman who heads the Arran Development Trust, highlights the shortage of vessels in Calmac’s fleet. “There is no slack. If they touch something as they dock, and they are out for a week, it’s a disaster,” he said.

 

Bill Calderwood, secretary of the Arran Ferry Committee is sceptical that the existing set of targets for ferry delivery and port modifications can be met. “We won’t get the benefit of the Glen Sannox till late 2022, and by then you would hope there would have been a spade in the ground at Ardrossan,” he said. “The route to Ardrossan won’t open again till 2024.”

On Arran these problems matter. Johnston, 61, said: “I don’t know why the Scottish government has allowed the fleet to become so old, or why there were no contingencies for when there is failure. We can’t run our business like that, but they are running our lives like that.”

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FERRIES INVESTIGATION

Proud ferries industry buffeted by failure

Passenger vessels were once built to last, now under the SNP they are not being built at all, writes Alf Young

Friday October 08 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/proud-ferries-industry-buffeted-by-failure-d288r76pm

 

The operator at the heart of Scotland’s west coast ferry crisis, Caledonian MacBrayne, has been around for much longer than most Scots realise. Today’s CalMac can trace its roots back to the middle of the 19th century when the ship-owning brothers George and James Burns struck a succession deal.

They were the Burns of Burns & Laird Line, whose steamers linked ports such as Liverpool and Glasgow with Belfast right up to the 1970s. But the deal George Burns did in 1851 was to secure the future of G & J Burns’s local coastal ferry services between Scotland’s western seaboard and its numerous island communities.

The brothers sold that Scottish arm of their business to David Hutcheson, the chief clerk, provided he took on their nephew David as a partner.

David MacBrayne is the Mac in CalMac. The Cal in CalMac is the Caledonian Steam Packet Company (CSPC), one of many steamer subsidiaries of competing rail companies that in the later decades of the 19th century serviced a burgeoning public appetite for sailing down the Clyde and spending leisure time at resorts.

The Caledonian Railway, widely known as The Caley, was one of the biggest. Having previously opened up Wemyss Bay as a railhead for sailings to the island of Bute in 1865, it tunnelled under a mile and a half of Greenock’s West End and used the spoil to create a new railhead and harbour at Gourock.

 

When Gourock welcomed its first train in 1889 the Caley had already underscored its commercial intent by placing the headquarters of its Steam Packet subsidiary there too. The original wooden Victorian railway terminus and pier are long gone but the CalMac ferry fleet is still headquartered there.

All those competing rail companies and their steamers were nationalised in 1948 and one of the first impacts was an extensive modernisation of the fleet. As a Greenock-born teenager in the late Fifties and early Sixties, I spent a number of school holidays working on Clyde steamers and ferries.

I started in the main kitchen on the classic paddle steamer Jeanie Deans, then moved on to be galley boy on the Arran, the first of three new side-loading, hoist-driven car ferries, linking Gourock to Dunoon on the Cowal peninsula and Wemyss Bay to Rothesay on Bute.

On weeks when we were on the Bute run, the first sailing at the crack of dawn each day was always from Rothesay to the mainland. We seemed to keep sailing each day as long as there were cars and their passengers waiting to cross. I still have somewhere a payslip for a week where I clocked up more than 100 hours.

The Jeanie Deans was launched in 1931 at Fairfield’s Govan yard. She saw service in the Channel during the war as a minesweeper and survived to resume cruising on the Clyde until the end of the 1964 season when, renamed the Queen of the South, she spent a further three years on the Thames.

The Arran was completed at the Denny yard in Dumbarton in 1953. Her sister car ferries, the Bute and the Cowal, were launched from the Ailsa yard in Troon in 1954. The original Glen Sannox, another car ferry more than twice their tonnage and destined for the Ardrossan to Brodick service, emerged from that same Troon yard in 1957.

Despite their intensive sailing histories the ABC car ferries, as they came to be known, were only withdrawn from service towards the end of the 1970s. The original Glen Sannox sailed on until 1989. A benchmark had been set. The effective lifespans of bigger boats on west coast ferry services was no more than three decades.

Over the five years from 1984 to 1989, four large new ferries — Isle of Arran, Hebridean Isles, Isle of Mull and Lord of the Isles — all entered service. Three of them were built at the Ferguson yard in Port Glasgow, which was then part of the state-owned British Shipbuilders. The oldest, Isle of Arran, will be celebrating four decades, not three, of continuous service if it can keep going until 2024.

 

Over the 1990s and up to 2006, another six larger new ferries, between 2,600 and 6,700 tonnes each, were commissioned together with six new smaller vessels. The two biggest boats, the Isle of Lewis and the Hebrides, were both built at Fergusons. Compare and contrast the scale of that fleet renewal programme to the present Scottish government’s record since it took control of the devolved Holyrood in 2007.

In the past 14 years successive SNP administrations have delivered just five new ferries, only two of which, Finlaggan and Loch Seaforth, built in Polish and German yards respectively, are major vessels. It has been calculated that, under SNP governance this far, the time it will take to replace the entire fleet has more than doubled from just over 36 years in the period up to 2007 to nearly 87 years now.

What has caused such a pronounced deterioration? The abject failure of the Ferguson yard, despite Scottish ministers taking it back into state ownership in 2019, to deliver a new Glen Sannox years late or even get its sister Hull 802 into the water, is certainly a massive factor. But it is not, despite sustained public concern over its manifest failures, the whole story.

The SNP first arrived in government as the groundwork was being laid to split the provision of ferry services and the ownership of both fleet and harbours used into separate bodies to comply with European Union state aid rules covering maritime transport. A new agency, Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (Cmal), would from 2007 be responsible for ferry procurement and harbour improvements, while CalMac, if it continued to win periodic competitive service contract renewals, would then deliver ferry services, using Cmal assets.

Of course, the UK, including Scotland, left the European Union at the end of January 2020. So the original raison d’être for creating Cmal no longer applies. However, the SNP wants to take an independent Scotland back into EU membership. Ministers have commissioned EY to investigate whether the current tripartite structure — Transport Scotland, Cmal and CalMac — remains fit for purpose. But will they be minded to keep Cmal anyway to bolster their EU ambitions?

The other great unanswered question centres on hard cash. SNP ministers have boosted ferry traffic by introducing the Road Equivalent Tariff as the core principle for setting fares. Passengers love it. But boosting demand across an ageing fleet, already experiencing more and more breakdowns and service delays, without spending more on new capacity, is simply unsustainable.

Funding the procurement of just five new vessels in the past 14 years simply will not do. Especially when more and more of Cmal’s budget seems to be devoted — as with the Loch Seaforth, and three passenger and two freight ferries on the Northern Isles services — to early buyouts of existing lease deals with banks and others, on the pretext there will be savings to be made in the longer term.

 

No one yet knows whether the Ferguson fiasco will prove to be fatal for a Scottish yard with a long, proud history of building ferries for CalMac. We do know that the next two ferries for Islay will be built in either Poland, Romania or Turkey. All in all it’s enough to set David MacBrayne and his uncles, the Burns brothers, birling in their graves. When it comes to demonstrating energy and enterprise in securely linking Scotland’s island communities to its mainland, our SNP government still has it all to prove.

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FERRIES INVESTIGATION

Scottish ferry fiasco: Smaller, compact ships are the way to go, say experts

Greig Cameron, Scottish Business Editor

Friday October 08 2021, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/scottish-ferry-fiasco-smaller-compact-ships-are-the-way-to-go-say-experts-9tt2wmfp2

 

Scotland’s ferries are overstaffed “mini-cruise ships” with à la carte menus and a gymnasium when they need to be compact, agile crafts with “linoleum on the floors”, sensible seating and a canteen for sliced sausage rolls, maritime experts have said.

Consultants and advisers have criticised plans to reshape the ageing fleet with vessels which would require harbour upgrades and have far greater capacity than needed. They claim creating space for 1,000 passengers on routes which typically cater to only 150 people per crossing is far more costly for taxpayers than necessary.

It is almost a year since a Holyrood committee recommended a review of how ferries are bought for the national fleet. Transport Scotland has an overarching role as the national agency while Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) is responsible for procuring ferries and harbour improvements and Caledonian MacBrayne (Calmac) uses those vessels to operate on the routes.

The committee’s recommendation came as part of its inquiry into the disastrous contract to build two new ferries, known as 801 and 802, at Ferguson Marine in Port Glasgow. The yard went into administration and passed into state control in 2019. Neither of the ferries is ready to sail and the initial £97 million cost is estimated to have risen to as much as £300 million.

CMAL has just selected a shortlist of overseas shipyards which will build new vessels for the Islay crossing and has announced plans to spend at least £580 million over the next five years.

 

Roy Pedersen, a consultant on maritime transport, believes the 801 and 802 are too large for their routes and that smaller vessels would dramatically improve crossings. “It is a concern that nothing has changed — 802 has a 1,000 passenger capacity,” he said of the vessel earmarked to serve Islay. “On any sailing on that route there has never been more than 335 passengers and that is unusual. Typically it might be 100 to 150. Why have a ship with 1,000 passenger capacity which will have a crew of 36?”

He said many Calmac ferries had onboard accommodation for crew including ensuite cabins, mess facilities and gyms. “That takes up a lot of space and costs a lot of capital,” he said. “It means the Scottish taxpayer is paying a huge amount of money for a system which is not very efficient.”

He said that the lowest paid catering employee on the new Islay ferry will earn about £30,000 a year.

 

Alf Baird, a former professor of maritime business at Napier University, described some Calmac ferries as mini cruise ships. “We basically need linoleum on the floors and some reasonable seating with teas, coffees and sliced sausage rolls,” he said. “You don’t need a la carte and plush carpets and 30 crew cabins all specified and built with a lovely gymnasium to go back and forward on a one or two hour crossing. It is just ridiculous.”

He added: “We had the catastrophic failure found by the Holyrood committee on 801 and 802 but still the same people are out there making the same mistakes again.” Baird said:

“The public sector does not apologise for the mistakes. Had this been the private sector the whole management would have been chucked out.”

 

Neil Kay, a professor at Strathclyde University who left Scotland’s Expert Ferry Group in 2014, believes there is a lack of accountability and responsibility among the public sector agencies, civil servants and ministers involved.

Kay, speaking in a personal capacity, believes an independent regulator is needed as well as looking to other nations on how to do things better. He said: “There is no point in having increased investment if it is not in the right place and done in the right way.”

He believes the delays and breakdowns seen this summer are likely to continue: “Calmac used to replace one vessel a year to keep up with renewal. They have lost the pace on that and it is going to take quite a bit to catch up.”

 

Pedersen believes the problems could be solved relatively quickly and cheaply by building smaller ships which offer greater flexibility and frequency.

 

The big players

 

Transport Scotland The government agency that oversees transport. Its budget and priorities are set by Holyrood ministers.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) The agency in charge of ferry procurement and public sector harbours. It buys vessels for the national fleet, as well as maintaining and improving port infrastructure. It is a public corporation owned by Scottish ministers. It rents out vessels and charges fees for harbour usage.

 

Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) The major operator of ferries between the mainland and islands on the west coast. It leases vessels from CMAL and bids to run routes through competitive tender.

 

Ferguson Marine The last commercial shipyard on the Lower Clyde passed into public ownership in 2019. The Port Glasgow yard had run out of cash in a dispute between its owners, the investment group headed by Jim McColl, and CMAL, over who should pay the extra costs for two ferries commiss-ioned in 2015. The initial £97 million budget for those has more than doubled and neither has been completed.

 

The last commercial shipyard on the Lower Clyde has become a symbol of what is wrong with Scotland’s publicly subsidised ferry infrastructure (writes Greig Cameron).

Yet some believe Ferguson Marine can have a bright future if it can rid itself of the “myopia” which has affected the buying and building of vessels in this country. The yard’s future looked promising in 2014 when Jim McColl, the Monaco-based industrialist, rescued it from administration and the following year it won a £97 million contract to build two new ferries for Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL).

A bitter dispute between the quango and management resulted in cost overruns, a delay in building and an inquiry at Holyrood. McColl and the management team departed as the yard was taken into public ownership towards the end of 2019. It has yet to deliver either of the two ferries. The £2,565 daily fee of Tim Hair, its state-appointed director, a turnaround specialist with limited shipbuilding experience, has raised eyebrows with his remuneration now in excess of £1.3 million.

 

A further disappointment came earlier this month as the yard failed to be shortlisted for the next set of vessels to be bought by CMAL.

Yet Alf Baird, a former professor of maritime business at Napier University who sits on Transport Scotland’s Expert Ferry Group, believes the yard could be viable and eventually win its share of public sector work. But there needs to be a rethink about what it can deliver and how vessels are sourced. Baird said: “There is only a future for Ferguson if the correct strategy is introduced. That strategy, which I’ve offered to ministers in the past, is to build a significant fleet but with low-cost vessels.”

He said that European yards had the basic hull built in a low-cost country such as in eastern Europe or Asia then imported it for fitting out. “What you should be able to do is build parts of it or finish it off. That is all the high-value stuff that can be done here like the engines, propulsion, navigation system and internal fit out.”

 

Hair has said he is hopeful the two vessels can be delivered next summer. He acknowledged there were some significant risks to that timeline as Ferguson tries to integrate computer management systems. There are also concerns over how equipment installed up to five years ago may work when it comes to be commissioned.

 

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Crivvens! Millport, tae!!

 

 

 

Largs Cumbrae ferry: MV Loch Shira out of action after damage

By Elle Duffy  @ElleDuffy_Subscriptions & Engagement Editor

UPDATED

Lifeline ferry service suspended after seabed contact damages vessel

 

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/19639818.largs-cumbrae-ferry-mv-loch-shira-action-damage/?ref=ebbn

   

A service on a lifeline Scots ferry route has been taken out of action after becoming damaged during operation.

The MV Loch Shira, which operates on the Largs-Cumbrae route in the west of Scotland, made contact with the seabed at Largs earlier today.

The vessel requires to be docked at Dales Greenock for repairs to be carried out, and it is not yet known when these repairs will be complete.

The MV Loch Alainn, which operates the Colintraive to Rhubodach route, is being redeployed to replace the MV Loch Shira, with services on that route being cancelled tomorrow.

Services on the Largs-Cumbrae route will continue from around 5pm on the MV Loch Alainn.

CalMac has confirmed to The Herald that the incident occurred during a cleaning break, and so no passengers were on board the vessel at the time.

No one was injured when the vessel came into contact with the seabed.

A statement on the CalMac website reads: "As a result of damage sustained to MV Loch Shira, after contact made with the seabed at Largs, the vessel requires to be docked for a repair to be carried out.

"A replacement vessel, MV Loch Alainn, is on passage to Largs and service is expected to resume at approximately 5pm."

A spokesman told The Herald: "MV Loch Alainn has been redeployed from Colintraive and will pick up the Largs-Cumbrae service at approximately 5pm. As a result, the Colintraive-Rhubodach service has been cancelled for the remainder of today and on Tuesday, October 12.

"MV Loch Riddon is on passage from the Oban area and is expected to arrive at Largs on Tuesday night to pick up service from Wednesday morning. This will allow MV Loch Alainn to return to Colintraive."

 

The MV Loch Alainn was last night also out of action after an electrical issue on board.

The vessel undertook sea trials this morning, with normal service resuming just hours before it was then drafted in to replace the MV Loch Shira at Largs.

It's the second incident to hit lifeline CalMac routes in just a matter of days.

On Sunday, passengers hoping to travel between the Isle of Arran and the mainland were forced to make a 3 hour diverted trip after a positive Covid case on the route's main ferry between Ardrossan and Brodick caused almost all sailings to be cancelled.

Passengers were told that all mainland to island travel were required to use the Claonaig to Lochranza service.

Today, it was confirmed that staffing issues at Ardrossan have been resolved, and services will now operate as timetabled.

The Herald has approached CalMac for further comment on today's incident on the MV Loch Shira. 

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As Uilleam has highlighted above, the 15 year old MV Loch Shirra made contact with the seabed over a week past. It's still out and Cal-Mac are refusing to say when the vessel will return to service. The ferry carries 250 passengers and up to 36 vehicles. The route is the continuous shuttle between Largs and the Isle of Cumbrae(Millport). Cal-Mac's solution so far has been cancelation of the service and re-routing other vessels, mainly from the already diminished Arran service. There will be significant knock on effect on the winter timetables of services to Mull, Islay and, Arran.

 

Again, why is it a state secret on the extent of the damage done and when the boat can return to service? The MP for North Ayrshire and Arran is the SNP's Patricia Gibson. As I understand it, all SNP MPs sign off at the beginning of each Parliamentary session to NOT criticise the SNP lead Scottish Government at Holyrood. Patricia Gibson has an opportunity to inform her constituents on matters MV Loch Shirra because sh is currently suspended from the party as allegations from a Westminster SNP Staffer of sexual harassment are investigated. You may remember that the SNP's then Chief Whip, Patrick Grady was also suspended for similar allegations made by a young male staffer?

 

Of course, like lots of things SNP it is a family affair. Patricia's Husband is MSP, Kenny Gibson. He enjoys frequent long holidays with his Parliamentary Secretary. Kenny Chaired Holyrood's Housing Committee for four years without revealing that he and wife Patricia were West End Landlords(they owned four flats being rented out to Undergraduates). Still, this is an opportunity for Patricia to be a Whistleblower, tell her constituents what they NEED to know.

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The SNP’s ferries disaster

From the Spectator 

19th Oct

 

The ship of state continues to run aground in Scotland, judging by the latest transport related fiasco to embroil Nicola Sturgeon's government. Not content with refusing Westminster's cash to fix his roads and admitting he has 'no idea' why rail unions are striking, SNP transport minister Graeme Dey has extended his incompetence beyond the boundaries of land. The under-fire appointee is facing questions about yet another ferries farrago after two more ships were this week declared out of action, further disrupting crucial services.

 

For those unfamiliar with this sorry tale of ocean-going incompetence, Steerpike is only too happy to provide a refresher. Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) is the state-owned operator of passenger, vehicle and ferry services between the mainland of Scotland and 22 of the major islands on country's west coast. CalMac receives significant government subsidies due to its vital role in supplying these islands: these routes are classified as 'lifeline' services. And now SNP ministers are facing claims that they have neglected the maintenance of the ships in its service during their 14 years in office. Some 16 of CalMac's 31 working ferries deployed across Scotland are over 25 years old; the tonnage of vessels launched since the SNP came to power in 2007 is half the tonnage which joined the fleet in the previous 14 years. 

 

Stories of route disruption now pepper papers, both local and national, on a weekly basis. The Arran Banner noted in August that the Ardrossan to Brodick route has had to cancel almost 20 per cent of journeys this year; the Daily Record detailed how another Arran ship had to be withdrawn for a 'sewage issue' while this month the Greenock Telegraph reported that a 'breakdown-plagued' ferry was set to make its return after five months following a 'major mechanical failure' having failed to make more than 2,000 scheduled sailings this year. 

 

While ageing ships are a fact of life, several factors have exacerbated the problems facing the existing fleet and CalMac's failure to upgrade. The Scottish Government's introduction of a subsidy to ferry fares under the Road Equivalent Tariff for instance was not matched by an acceleration in its ship-building programme. Use of the service increased meaning ferries wore out more quickly but without the necessary ships ready to replace them at the end of their reduced life service.


And if the current ships are old and out of date, their replacements are both way over budget and long-overdue. Would-be ferry ships MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802 are still languishing in now state-owned Ferguson Marine's shipyard, with costs of their construction more than doubling from the original £97m contract agreed in 2015. 

 

The former of the two ships was unveiled by the First Minister in November 2017, with the windows on the unfinished vessel painted in so as not to embarrass her. Her government's procurement of the vessels has been described as 'a catastrophic failure' by a Scottish Parliament committee with both ships that were meant to be in use by 2018 now not expected to be delivered by 2022 and 2023.
Still, with Captain Sturgeon declining to make any of her ministers walk the plank, Mr S wonders how many more millions will be sunk in the longest-running Scottish comedy since Still Game.

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4 minutes ago, ChelseaBoy said:

The SNP’s ferries disaster

From the Spectator 

19th Oct

 

The ship of state continues to run aground in Scotland, judging by the latest transport related fiasco to embroil Nicola Sturgeon's government. Not content with refusing Westminster's cash to fix his roads and admitting he has 'no idea' why rail unions are striking, SNP transport minister Graeme Dey has extended his incompetence beyond the boundaries of land. The under-fire appointee is facing questions about yet another ferries farrago after two more ships were this week declared out of action, further disrupting crucial services.

 

For those unfamiliar with this sorry tale of ocean-going incompetence, Steerpike is only too happy to provide a refresher. Caledonian MacBrayne (CalMac) is the state-owned operator of passenger, vehicle and ferry services between the mainland of Scotland and 22 of the major islands on country's west coast. CalMac receives significant government subsidies due to its vital role in supplying these islands: these routes are classified as 'lifeline' services. And now SNP ministers are facing claims that they have neglected the maintenance of the ships in its service during their 14 years in office. Some 16 of CalMac's 31 working ferries deployed across Scotland are over 25 years old; the tonnage of vessels launched since the SNP came to power in 2007 is half the tonnage which joined the fleet in the previous 14 years. 

 

Stories of route disruption now pepper papers, both local and national, on a weekly basis. The Arran Banner noted in August that the Ardrossan to Brodick route has had to cancel almost 20 per cent of journeys this year; the Daily Record detailed how another Arran ship had to be withdrawn for a 'sewage issue' while this month the Greenock Telegraph reported that a 'breakdown-plagued' ferry was set to make its return after five months following a 'major mechanical failure' having failed to make more than 2,000 scheduled sailings this year. 

 

While ageing ships are a fact of life, several factors have exacerbated the problems facing the existing fleet and CalMac's failure to upgrade. The Scottish Government's introduction of a subsidy to ferry fares under the Road Equivalent Tariff for instance was not matched by an acceleration in its ship-building programme. Use of the service increased meaning ferries wore out more quickly but without the necessary ships ready to replace them at the end of their reduced life service.


And if the current ships are old and out of date, their replacements are both way over budget and long-overdue. Would-be ferry ships MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802 are still languishing in now state-owned Ferguson Marine's shipyard, with costs of their construction more than doubling from the original £97m contract agreed in 2015. 

 

The former of the two ships was unveiled by the First Minister in November 2017, with the windows on the unfinished vessel painted in so as not to embarrass her. Her government's procurement of the vessels has been described as 'a catastrophic failure' by a Scottish Parliament committee with both ships that were meant to be in use by 2018 now not expected to be delivered by 2022 and 2023.
Still, with Captain Sturgeon declining to make any of her ministers walk the plank, Mr S wonders how many more millions will be sunk in the longest-running Scottish comedy since Still Game.

I just find it amazing that we used to be able to build some fantastic ships on the Clyde and these days we cant even construct two poxy ferries 

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1 hour ago, compo said:

two poxy ferries 

Actually, they are far from 'poxy': they seem to be oversized and over specced (as well as overdue and overbudget):

too big for the docking facilities at their proposed ports of call, they are designed to cater for far more passengers than will ever use them, and their proposed fitting out is more appropriate for ocean going cruise liners than rock jumping ferries.

Oh, and they are also 'dual fuel', capable of operating on either marine diesel or Liquified Natural Gas.

 

The SNP's eternal pissing contest refers.

 

 

 

 

 

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Today, the Herald reports that the high powered Scots-Government formed ferry advisory group has NOT met for two years.

 

The Scottish Government invited a dozen folks to form the Committee and they were tasked with advising on key issues affecting lifeline island services in Scotland. Now, you would think this year's on going ferry fiasco would be the very reason why this Committee would be coming together on a regular basis. On a number of occasions, the RAF have taken over the lifeline aspect, flying medical supplies on to islands.

 

The last time the Ferry Industry Advisory Committee met was October 2019. Further, it has been reported the two Scots Government Ministers involved, Graeme Dey and Michael Mathieson are NOT available for comment. I wonder how many times this Government can get away with shouting proposed targets from the rooftops, only to miss every one of those targets and, say nothing? I suspect those 'invited' will be well remunerated thus ensuring necessary silence when Cal-Mac fails to provide lifeline services on a regular basis?

 

Has Greme Dey and Michael Mathieson ever set foot on a Cal-Mac ferry?

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