The calamities of Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd
Scottish ferries are in a ferry bad shape
There was once a MacBrayne skipper called Duncan “Squeaky” Robertson — a master-mariner from Skye, of small stature and formidable personality, of whom many tales are told.
Like about the day in the Twenties he took the steamer Plover — a tough little ship; in 1918, she had seen off a U-boat — on what should have been a routine hop from Tarbert (Harris) to Lochmaddy (North Uist.) This was in conditions locals would have thought a bit fresh, southerners as a gale and your American as a hurricane.
The Plover duly vanished in foam and hail, never reached Lochmaddy and rumours — pre-wireless, pre-HM Coastguard helicopter, pre-satellite — fast circulated of her last seen disappearing between two enormous waves.
Then, after a day or two of fraught silence, she puffed into Kyle of Lochalsh. Ventilators were missing, ladders bent, railings mangled — her funnel heavily caked in salt as the Plover’s whey-faced passengers tottered ashore.
Squeaky leaned over the bridge-wing. “We had a bit of a breeze,” he announced laconically.
A century on, what is now Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd — Scotland’s state-owned ferry operator in the Firth of Clyde and the Hebrides — is in its own perfect storm.
An ageing fleet, incessant breakdowns, crumbling infrastructure, incessantly cancelled sailings, repeated delays and, at the Fergusons yard in Port Glasgow, a public-sector procurement scandal for the ages.
The whole piece is well worth reading as yet another example of political lessons which remain forever unlearned.
11 comments:
Political lessons are learned... as dodges and fixes to avoid blame in the future.
"Almost every delay or cancellation is blamed on some unspecified “technical issue”" ... but of course. Never the policy nor competence.
To buy a ship that won't fit in its harbour takes the biscuit. That's the sort of arithmetic we did in primary school.
DJ and James - yes that's it, those responsible do politics, not ferries. The only lessons learned are political, mostly blame avoidance.
dearieme - it's weird, as if they place politics on a higher plane than arithmetic.
Didn't they also buy a couple of "Hybrid" propulsion ships which couldn't be charged because the power supply wasn't up to it? Or was it an issue with getting LNG in bulk?
I do not know if the link mentions the following.
There is a canny man in Orkney who owns the Pentland Ferries company. Totally private with no access to Ferry Company subsidies. Which nationalised CalMac accepts.
He had bought a new ferry and his old one which he reputedly bought new for £14 million was awaiting a buyer. For many months now this one-careful-owner ship has been rented , with crew, to CalMac for £1million per month, to take the place of a £(multi hundred million) absent proper CalMed ferry. Now for 15 months.
He obviously believes the W. C. Fields maxim that it morally wrong to allow a sucker to keep his (our) money.
Dave - there was a problem with 'hybrid' ferries but they had to switch to diesel.
Doonhamer - interesting and good for him. According to the Pentland Ferries website -
"The MV Alfred is more than 60 per cent more efficient in terms of fuel consumption and emission levels than other comparable ferries operating in Scotland."
My favourite Squeaky Robertson anecdote:
Visting master mariner points out various black dots on the chart, right in the ship's path. Points them out to Squeaky, who responds "If they're rocks we're buggered, but it they're what I think they are, which is fly-shit on the paper, then we're fine."
Course not altered, ship proceeds safely.
Fly-shit indeed.
There's also Western Ferries, which operates one route on the Clyde. No subsidies, no politics, no unions, excellent service. I'm a regular. They'd love to take on other routes, but naturally the SNP won't consider it.
The finest boat in the tred.
Peter - he sounds rather like Para Handy.
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