‘Chaos’ engulfs CalMac
CalMac hit the rocks this week, as a perfect storm of over-runs, breakdowns and bad weather struck its ageing fleet, leading to island food shortages, and SNP demands for four new ferries.
This week CalMac’s network was four vessels short, with three in dry dock, and the critical MV Hebrides, which serves Uig/Skye, Lochmaddy/North Uist and Tarbert/Harris, out of action with engine trouble until Sunday February 13.
Shops on some islands were reporting shortages of fresh produce due to the cancellations, with no guarantee when normal service would resume.
In response, CalMac was prioritising lifeline freight and passenger sailings between Oban and Castlebay/Barra and Lochboisdale/South Uist.
Robbie Drummond, managing director of CalMac, said: ‘Some of our vessels need urgent repairs which are being prioritised by engineers and
Dr Alasdair Allan
others are delayed in annual overhaul. For example, a substantial amount of emergent steelwork was discovered on MV Clansman in dry dock, and this has delayed her return by three weeks.
‘Our masters have reported conditions the likes of which we have not experienced for many years. At times, this has made sailings impossible.
‘It is very upsetting that some communities have been without a ferry service for several days.’ After speaking with concerned constituents, Na h-Eileanan an Iar MSP Alasdair Allan said: ‘This is a completely unacceptable situation for our islands, and the longer we need to keep waiting for new vessels, the more detrimental the impact on island residents and businesses becomes.
‘While the weather conditions are not the fault of CalMac, this situation once again calls into question the fleet’s resilience. Local shops should not be having to put up with absorbing significant financial losses as fresh produce goes to waste due to it being unable to reach its destination on time.
‘Disruption on this scale represents a real threat to the livelihoods of island residents, further making the case for there to be more vessels in the CalMac fleet, and for additional ferries secured as soon as possible to act as relief vessels.’
It also emerged the two new CalMac ferries being built at Port Glasgow’s nationalised
Ferguson Marine shipyard are facing further delays because hundreds of electrical cables have been wrongly installed.
Scottish Labour’s transport spokesperson Neil Bibby described it as ‘another humiliating chapter’ in an ‘endless fiasco’. During First Minister’s Questions, Nicola Sturgeon said the error stemmed from before the yard was taken into public ownership.
With islands at ‘crisis point’, the Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council) called for ‘urgent action’ from CalMac and Scottish Government. The two delayed ferries being built by Ferguson, plus Islay’s two new ferries, designed to fit nearly every harbour on the network, ‘will not be enough to address the existing renewal needs of the CalMac ferries fleet’, the Comhairle said.
‘To provide short-term relief, an opportunity exists for Government to purchase MV Pentalina which could enter service immediately to either Arran or Mull and allow redeployment of another ferry to shore up the delivery of services across the network.
‘The Government also needs to increase the planned order of the new Islay ferries from the planned two to at least four ferries. This action would go a long way to resetting the decades of under-investment in ferries and give island communities genuine confidence that the Government will support their economic recovery from the most challenging period in living memory.’
‘We need more ferries,’ agreed Na h-Eileanan an Iar’s MP Angus MacNeil, urging Transport Scotland to approach shipyards in Poland and Germany. The two new Islay ferries will not be made in Scotland, after four shipyards from Romania, Poland and Turkey were invited to tender for the contract. A decision will be made in March 2022.
‘The Pentalina meantime would look like a stop gap if it is fully seaworthy and there are no problems with it,’ Mr MacNeil said.