Scottish Ferries

He claimed Alex Salmond had shown a “lack of political will” on the issue

I read this far before clocking the article was from 2012

Just seen an update from our island ferry committee which highlights some of the issues that will run into the next few years across the network:

MV Hebridean Isles (Islay/Colonsay) is being retired this month with no immediate replacement – this means our main ferry Isle of Mull is being diverted and leaving us with only 30% service over much of the winter.

The Isle of Mull is next up for retirement in 2025, but with no new ship it means that the temporary replacement ferry is likely to be heavier – the problem is that Craignure pier isn’t strong enough but Argyll & Bute Council aren’t planning a replacement until 2029, so in the mean time, there’s a risk of damage to the pier which could permanently impact on services.

Ferry fares are due to increase by 10% but fares only cover a third of total operating costs and there’s increasing fiscal pressure from Government.. Tourist fares are likely to increase more in time (islanders presently don’t receive discounted fares) Calmac operating model is pretty inefficient, sometimes needing twice as much crew as comparable services in other countries.

Calmac operating model is pretty inefficient, sometimes needing twice as much crew as comparable services in other countries.

This is one of the things that make them uncompetitive. Most of the ferries have a full time crew, who live aboard for 2 weeks or so, then have two weeks off. Most of the services finish before 10pm, and start around 6am. Perfect for two 8 / 9 hour shifts, but why are there staff onboard for 24 hours? Some can be done with one shift, I think the Gigha ferry is one that isnt manned overnight, the Mull and Arran ferries have no need for Staff to sleep onboard, surely there are Staff available within commuting distance of the port. It is one of the reasons why the two delayed ferries are costing so much, one deck was purely for Staff accommodation, adding an awful lot of weight to the boat, making it less efficient, adding to the cost, and continuing with the poor practice of 24 hour manning, when it isnt required.

The counter claim is that having the crew living onboard allows them to redistribute the fleet at the drop of a hat

surely there are Staff available within commuting distance of the port.

Why do you suppose that? How many islanders do you imagine hold the necessary SOLAS or MCA qualifications and competencies?

Just to confirm… I recently retired from Calmac as an engineer. We had Officer staff travelling from as far away as Canada and Spain to work on the boats. There is a dearth of qualified staff available throughout the industry and there is no possibility of having sufficient local staff.
Larger boats also have live aboard staff as it’s simply impractical to do otherwise. There are always jobs to be done after sailing has finished and machinery runs all night .

There is a dearth of qualified staff available throughout the industry and there is no possibility of having sufficient local staff.

I’m assuming that there are more lucrative gigs than Calmac as well? Or is that what attracts folk from so far away.

Employment is an issue on islands and much of the west coast, it’s interesting there’s not more locals heading to City of Glasgow College for the training and certs they need.

This is one of the things that make them uncompetitive. Most of the ferries have a full time crew, who live aboard for 2 weeks or so, then have two weeks off. Most of the services finish before 10pm, and start around 6am. Perfect for two 8 / 9 hour shifts, but why are there staff onboard for 24 hours?

My uncle/mums brother was on a number of Cal Mac ferries (not sure what he did.) and he used to take his camper van to live in at the harbours/ports as he lives near ardrishaig, he mostly worked around the kintyre/mull area if I recall correctly.

Just to confirm… I recently retired from Calmac as an engineer.

You’ll probably know my uncle I mentioned above, K MacInnes

@somafunk
…No , the guys who live overnight in the camper vans are on the ” wee boats” as they are known. I was on the ” big boats” .
Regarding lack of suitability qualified staff .. to give you some idea ; in my year at Glasgow Nautical College there were three classes, some 120 students doing Engineering alone. Within 3 years all the Government incentives had been stopped and the year intakes were down to about 25/30.
I was made redundant on Christmas eve in my final year.
As for more lucrative employment. Definitely, working tax free on either vessels or oil rigs is a huge incentive.
Previously I worked for Stenaline and we had to use Polish Agencies to man the Engine room. Otherwise we would not have sailed.

I know quite a few people who work for Calmac – there would be more jobs available if more ferries were home ported here, but they aren’t – all the big ferries are home ported on the mainland. The pay and conditions are quite good. Speak to old timers about ferry reliability and they’ll tell you that they rarely cancelled despite the weather – big, flat sided and flat-bottomed boats aren’t that good in rough weather, but Calmac’s management appear to be more focussed on carrying weegies to Brodick for the weekend that providing a reliable, resilient service to islanders. The general view is that for the inner isles like Mull, we’d be better with a fleet of 3-4 smaller ferries than one small, one big that we currently have. In the summer they could work longer hours, whilst down to 2 in the winter.

Employment is an issue on islands and much of the west coast, it’s interesting there’s not more locals heading to City of Glasgow College for the training and certs they need.

If they’re going to nautical college why would they waste their time with Calmac when they can go away and work for on the tankers, box boats or cruise liners tax free? When I was there we used to joke about working the Arran ferry. I don’t know anyone who went to the ferries after college.

Ferry fares are due to increase by 10% but fares only cover a third of total operating costs and there’s increasing fiscal pressure from Government.. Tourist fares are likely to increase more in time

As a tourist I was surprised how cheap it was for 4 of us to do a day trip from Oban to Mull with a car. I’d initially looked at just going across as foot passengers and getting the bus up to Tobermory but there didn’t appear to be any logic in the bus times considering when the ferry arrived or departed, and taking the car was far more convenient and barely any more expensive. The same seems to be true for most of the other west coast ferries and makes taking a car almost the default option. Even for Gigha there was a queue for non-islander cars that waited for the next ferry rather than travel on foot.

Somewhere cheap using sweatshop labour might have seemed a good idea to the accountants

It’s a false premise to suggest that any shipyard outside Scotland would be a sweatshop. A tender that didn’t have its thumb on the scale for a Scotchy McScotch shipyard owned by a friend of Salmond might even have resulted in a higher headline price at time of contracting…and the chance they’d have been competent enough to deliver on time and at the contracted price without dodgy extensions and bailouts.

That the SNP butchered the procurement in so many ways so that the “home bidder” being unfairly unfavoured wasn’t the only problem is undeniable.

Ship – port incompatibility is a common problem it seems.  I heard that the Australian government has taken delivery of two big ferries for the Bass Straight.  Only problem, they are too big for one of the terminals, the Tasmania one IIRC.  They will be in Leith over our Winter while the mess is sorted out.

@pca

It’s a false premise to suggest that any shipyard outside Scotland would be a sweatshop.

But that is NOT what I said – read what you quoted again…  non-definitive verb and described the low cost options; but IF you dance to the tune of the cheap as possible argument, it opens up later questions about losing Scottish jobs whilst workers in a poorer part of the world lose their lives building our ships.  Procurement decisions in the public eye are horrible as 9 times out of 10 someone vocal will claim you got it wrong.

That the SNP butchered the procurement in so many ways so that the “home bidder” being unfairly unfavoured wasn’t the only problem is undeniable.

I’m not sure I’ve seen any actual evidence that the SNP were directly involved in the procurement process.  Its just as likely to me that CMAL and civil servants buggered that up without needing to involve a minister!

SNP?

“The newly unredacted sections show ministers were warned the failure to get a guarantee from Ferguson Marine could enable a “disappointed competing bidder” to argue “in accepting a lesser refund amount from a financial institution the cost saving of this to FMEL makes it no longer a level playing field”.”

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-ministers-warned-rigged-ferguson-28827873

The SNP also chose the highest bid despite being warned of risks

“With no such guarantee in place, and despite the yard being the most expensive of seven bids, Scottish ministers nonetheless approved the awarding of the contract to Ferguson Marine. Since then, Audit Scotland have found there is ‘insufficient documentary evidence’ to explain why Scottish ministers accepted the contract risks in 2015. ”

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-snps-ferry-fiasco-is-a-very-scottish-sham/

but IF you dance to the tune of the cheap as possible argument

…which no-one is making, and this kind of procurement never uses…

Most of the ferries have a full time crew, who live aboard for 2 weeks or so, then have two weeks off. Most of the services finish before 10pm, and start around 6am. Perfect for two 8 / 9 hour shifts, but why are there staff onboard for 24 hours? Some can be done with one shift, I think the Gigha ferry is one that isnt manned overnight, the Mull and Arran ferries have no need for Staff to sleep onboard, surely there are Staff available within commuting distance of the port.

Live aboard crew offers flexibility – if you need certainty that the boat is in a certain place at a certain time for a crew change, or for your crew to get off at night it becomes more likely that they will cancel services when running late / poor forecast whilst a live aboard crew can just stay if the boat gets “stuck” somewhere.   It also means you can move boats around the fleet easier.  Moving Heb Isles from Arran to Stornoway for example – how do you do that without accommodation for the crew in all the options.  Of course some islanders think that would be better because “their” boat would stay where it “belongs” rather than being borrowed for another route.

Speak to old timers about ferry reliability and they’ll tell you that they rarely cancelled despite the weather – big, flat sided and flat-bottomed boats aren’t that good in rough weather, but Calmac’s management appear to be more focussed on carrying weegies to Brodick for the weekend that providing a reliable, resilient service to islanders.

isn’t nostalgia a great thing!  Do they also hark after the days when cars were craned on and off most boats going to an island or when rather than artic trucks moving goods to / from the islands, puffers carried everything in the hold?  The tourists v local argument is clearly an emotive one, but most of the time is a tricky argument – you can probably have a resilient service with fewer tourists if you are willing to pay more per ticket, with far fewer, less frequent services.  Less tourists = less income = less work = depopulation = less ferry demand = poorer services.

the thing is – despite everyone claiming to know exactly what is needed:

1. No political party has laid out a detailed, deliverable alternative.

2. No commercial operator (or island cooperative) has come up with an alternative service that competes on flexibility/reliability/satisfaction even if it was a foot only, or freight only service.

so I stick to what I was saying earlier it’s far easier to shout from the side lines about what should be done (often considering only 1 route you particularly care about) than it is to run an entire network: balancing commercial income, lifeline services, safety and comfort, staff retention, flexibility for large events etc.

” No commercial operator (or island cooperative) has come up with an alternative service that competes on flexibility/reliability/satisfaction even if it was a foot only, or freight only service

1. Actually Roy Pederson who seems to be qualified has proposed an alternative way.

“In his submission, Mr Pedersen calls for adoption of the “Norwegian model”, based on shortest feasible sea crossings using ferries with minimal “live-ashore” crewing and high frequency schedules.”

https://www.stornowaygazette.co.uk/business/ferries-expert-laments-a-public-finance-waste-4598010

The ferry situation is nothing compared to the A 9 . A never ending talk/ promise about dualing upgrade . And just look at the high speed train line down south. Has the UK ever delivered on time, in budget or fit for purpose  . Would have been ok if it was all contracted out to the Spanish .

Has the UK ever delivered on time, in budget or fit for purpose

Queensferry crossing and Borders railway?  ?    electrification of the Glasgow / Edinburgh trains?

Just don’t mention the Edinburgh trams ( tho in its current form its actually quite good and well used)

It never rains, it pours.

https://news.stv.tv/west-central/scotlands-busiest-ferry-could-be-out-of-service-until-march-after-deformed-steel-found

Substandard paintwork found on the Glen Sannox. In this pic the paint has been sprayed over a wire brush.

“‘Paintwork in the major machinery spaces, the engine room and generator room, is also a mess and needs fixed. The area was not properly cleaned and they sprayed over nuts, bolts, dirt – you name it.‘There’s even a wire brush stuck in the paint. The parts were fitted before they were painted, so the sequencing was all wrong.’ ”

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14005785/New-ferry-farce-huge-pumps-one-vessel-taken-repair-other.html

Clydebuilt.

Surely the accommodation problem would be better and cheaper to solve by just having an accommodation block in the ports?  You could still move boats around wherever you liked and save the expensive space on the boats for passengers / cargo?

How does CalMac compare to the Northlink – Orkney/Shetland ferry routes?

The Isle of Mull is next up for retirement in 2025

To make me feel old, my P6 teacher (at Ardgowan Primary if anyone cares) was married to one of the foremen at Ferguson’s so my class was taken to see the Isle of Mull launched.

Surely the accommodation problem would be better and cheaper to solve by just having an accommodation block in the ports?  You could still move boats around wherever you liked and save the expensive space on the boats for passengers / cargo?

In every port? So Brodick, Ardrossan, Cambeltown, Troon, Oban, Mull, Tiree, Coll, Barra, Stornoway, Islay (both Port Askaig and Port Ellen?), Wemyss Bay, Rothesay, Kennacraig, Tarbet, Mallaig, Lochboisdale, Lochmaddy, Ullapool – with space for 15-30 depending which boats go there – (and more in Oban).  All needing land, planning permission, etc.    If you don’t do all of those (and the various dry dock facilities they use) you don’t have their current flexibility to redeploy at a moments notice.    I’m not saying that solution is wrong – but its not quite as obvious as it first sounds, and some of its advocates have a sub-plot of “well if the boat need to get back to its home port each night our boat will stop getting borrowed”.  I think there are other complications – when you have a crew on full time 2 weeks on 2 off (or whichever pattern they use) there is no expectation that the crew have to get off at a specific time for childcare / elderly relatives etc – their employment contracts are seafarers ones, but if you have a “day crew” you have much more headaches like that – and also probably more likely to have crew “phone in sick” in the morning / sleep in etc. Scotrail get screwed up majorly with those issues – ships must be worse, the non standard design means your need to familiarise yourself with the vessel not just get dropped in.

Actually Roy Pederson who seems to be qualified has proposed an alternative way.
“In his submission, Mr Pedersen calls for adoption of the “Norwegian model”, based on shortest feasible sea crossings using ferries with minimal “live-ashore” crewing and high frequency schedules.”

Has he got any or all of the political parties to adopt has proposal as their manifesto pledge?  Has he got together a group of venture capitalists to fund a competitive offering and win the next tender? Or convinced Western Ferries (who do operate that sort of model Gourock to Dunoon) to expand its services and squeeze Calmac even on all the small ferries in the clyde…?  No… so its easy words that aren’t a reality.  Shortest possible sea crossings means quite a few of your existing terminals/ports are in the wrong place, or need new terminals on the other side.  Presumably that means a route like Tiree (Currently Oban-Coll-Tiree) becomes something like Tiree to West Mull / Drive to East Mull / Ferry to Oban.  Or Tiree to Coll / Coll to Mull / Drive to East Mull / Ferry to Oban or Mull to Morvern / Corran Ferry…  is that what islanders want?  with current road infrastructure and public transport is that realistic?  Similarly with Arran – Lochranza has a ferry – but it doesn’t go where that most people want to get to – in fact to get to major population centres it goes over the road which will probably be the next transport infrastructure screw up – the Rest and be Thankful .  Scotland is not Norway: they invested oil money wisely, they build tunnels…

It might even be the right solution if you are starting fresh with a brand new fleet, but they aren’t they have to have the ability to shuffle vessels not just for breakdowns but routine maintenance etc.  I’m not saying its crazy talk or can’t be done but its not ideology thats made CMAL/Calmac/ScotGov etc adopt the current model – if anything “Island Jobs for Island People” and training Scots as mariners at the Nautical College in Glasgow should have been SNP policy wins.  I would love to see a network of small ferries linking lots of places – I think networks are really important for economic development, but I don’t think Islanders want to wait 20 years for such a major investment project even if the rest of the country would think that was the priority for spending.

Queensferry crossing and Borders railway?  ?    electrification of the Glasgow / Edinburgh trains?

Borders railway? Technically I guess but they had to spend more money later on trains that could actually use it.

Similarly EGIP was a cut cut down shade of the original proposal.

Borders railway? Technically I guess but they had to spend more money later on trains that could actually use it.

Similarly EGIP was a cut cut down shade of the original proposal.

And Queensferry Crossing was technically delivered on time – but I think they were (maybe still are) still doing some snagging work years later.  It was specced for the traffic load at the date of the order, not even the forecast at the date of completion.  So not a total catastrophe, but it is not an shining example of success.

” It was specced for the traffic load at the date of the order, not even the forecast at the date of completion.  So not a total catastrophe, but it is not an shining example of success.”

It was deliberately not specced as dual 3 lane because they wanted to  force the public to use public transport.

“”In Transport Scotland’s business case for the project [Transport Scotland] stated that the project was not intended to increase the capacity of the route for traffic and that increased demand for travel across the Forth will need to be met by public transport”.

https://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/16686212.queensferry-crossing-design-not-intended-increased-traffic-capacity/

Which IMO was a spectacularly bad choice because while I am not a regular user it would apperar likely that a majority of bridge traffic are not on journeys easily done by public transport.

It was deliberately not specced as dual 3 lane because they wanted to force the public to use public transport.

and not increase traffic in general – the jams on the M8 and into Edinburgh are bad enough without generating more traffic.  Building more roads in general does not reduce congestion – it increases it in other areas as total traffic increases

Not everyone using the bridge starts or finishes in Edinburgh. As for better roads leading to more congestion I haven’t noticed the increased  congestion on the dualled sections of the A9, or the M74 or the M8/M74 junction area where major improvements were carried out a decade or so ago.

Why anyone thought replacing a bridge built for 1960s traffic (and a planned increase) with the same capacity bridge 4 decades later was a good idea, who knows?

ts a well known phenomenon.  Increased capacity on roads gets used and thus causes congestion elsewhere – and tell me where the extra traffic coming off a 3 lane bridge would go ?

Kirkcaldy?

Have you ever been stuck on the M8/M74/77 junction biggest disaster ever in road planning. Car park every night

and tell me where the extra traffic coming off a 3 lane bridge would go ?

Its already there.  2 lanes from Newbridge, 2 from the city, plus A904 at south end.  At north you have 2 lanes from Dunfermline, 2 from M90, 2 from A92 + inverkeithing.  The bridge is a 2 lane bottleneck in a system much wider everywhere else.

sajama55
Free Member
Have you ever been stuck on the M8/M74/77 junction biggest disaster ever in road planning. Car park every night

Posted 35 minutes ago

All depends on timing mind you…

Exited office basement car park this afternoon at 415, in my EV, parked at house in East Kilbride 22 minutes later, fuel cost 17 pence..

Office on Bothwell st, straight onto Kingston Bridge, M77, GSO, home.

You know what’s needed at Queensferry? A ferry. The jetty is still there. And I’m sure access roads could be added. Would make the commute north more interesting.

“Have you ever been stuck on the M8/M74/77 junction biggest disaster ever in road planning. Car park every night”

How bad would it be if all that traffic heading for Newton Means and Ayrshire was still on the old A77 through Giffnock which is where we would be if we followed the new roads don’t help theory?