SUNK BY CALMAC
‘Weather-shy’ ferry service could spell ruin for isle seafood firm, risking 100 jobs
A SCOTS seafood firm could be forced to close with the loss of 100 jobs due to an unreliable and ‘weather-shy’ ferry service.
Barratlantic, which supplies shellfish and fresh fish to the Continent, says it may not survive due to CalMac’s ‘appalling’ schedule.
The firm, based on Barra in the Outer Hebrides, employs 45 people at its processing factory and on its fleet of vehicles, with a similar number of jobs connected to the 12 fishing boats that supply it.
Donald Joseph Maclean, the managing director, said CalMac’s service had become so unreliable he had been warned by his agent in Boulogne, France, that customers were cancelling or reducing orders.
CalMac’s own figures show it cancelled 48 sailings on its Barra to Oban crossing in February alone – significantly higher than the 16, 20 and 14 cancellations in the preceding three months.
The ferry operator said the weather has been very poor and its crews are trained to judge when conditions are safe.
Mr Maclean said 90 per cent of his £6million annual turnover was dependent on the continental market.
He added: ‘We should have sent fish we caught on Saturday off on the next day’s ferry to arrive in Boulogne on Monday morning. But there was no ferry Sunday and none Monday.
‘It is just another example of a problem that has plagued us with CalMac over the last five months in particular.
‘There is no flexibility over sailing in weather windows. We had 16-metre (52ft) boats fishing up to ten miles offshore on Monday while CalMac’s big ferry was tied up. It is ridiculous.
‘Some of CalMac’s skippers seem shy or inflexible to the weather when it is sailable in windows. We are on the verge of closure and it’s not the lack of customers that will sink us, but CalMac. We want a reliable ferry service, not the appalling one we have at the moment.
‘We need to get our produce to market as fresh as possible. On Monday we had £60,000 worth of scallops, fish and langoustines packed for the French market that had to be unpacked and frozen because of CalMac.’
Mr Maclean wants the available Pentland Ferries catamaran MV Pentalina to be trialled for use, and he has been backed by Western Isles MP Angus MacNeil, who also lives on Barra.
He said: ‘We cannot afford to lose this number of jobs anywhere in the Western Isles, let alone a place like Barra.
‘We need skippers to look for weather windows for the sake of the island’s economy. The number of cancelled sailings is now at a critical level.’
CalMac said its vessel was storm-bound in Castlebay, Barra, on Monday while alternative essential lifeline connections were made available.
Operations director Robert Morrison said: ‘The weather has been very poor and our cancellations are due to that.
‘We are always flexible and frequently sail outside the timetable where circumstances allow.
‘Our highly trained, experienced Masters always take the opportunity to explore weather windows, but they have to look at the entire journey start to finish and decide if it is safe.
‘We fully appreciate the impact not being able to sail has on island-based businesses… but we can only sail when it is safe.’
‘Skippers seem inflexible’