The ferry disruption on the Ardrossan to Brodick route started last Friday when only one sailing out of the five scheduled departed Ardossan. And only three sailings out of a scheduled five, made it out of Brodick. This saw the 12.30pm sailing from Ardrossan being the last sailing of the day.
The following day all scheduled sailings on the route were cancelled with a review at 3pm deciding that the ferry would not return to service owing to continued bad weather.
Sunday brought with it continued adverse weather with winds in excess of 45mph which, once again, resulted in no sailings taking place throughout the day.
By Monday morning, continued bad weather caused lengthy delays to sailings and with conditions worsening, the 4.40pm from Brodick and the 6pm from Ardrossan were cancelled. This had a knock-on effect, resulting in Tuesday morning’s 7am sailing from Ardrossan being cancelled as the vessel was berthed in Brodick.
To accommodate some of the traffic affected by the cancellations CalMac operated a shuttle service on the Claonaig to Lochranza route starting on Friday, but this had to be curtailed early, and resulted in a number of passengers being stranded when the advertised 5pm sailing from Claonaig was called off within 15 minutes of the sailing.
On both Saturday and Sunday, the Claonaig/Tarbert to Lochranza route, still managed to provide six sailings and back each day. The additional sailings were arranged to support capacity while MV Hebridean Isles - a smaller vessel - was substituting on the Ardrossan to Brodick route during the annual overhaul of the regular vessel, MV Caledonian Isles.
MV Caledonian Isles, which was scheduled to return last week, was delayed owing to additional steel works that were discovered during her annual overhaul. Its return was further delayed until Wednesday this week after undertaking sea trials the day before.
Unfortunately, on the anticipated day of return on Wednesday, the vessel could not return to service as a case of Covid was discovered on board. And, as the vessel was berthed in Brodick overnight, it then prevented MV Hebridean Isles from carrying out early morning scheduled sailings as MV Caledonian Isles could not be moved without crew.
At the time of going to press on Wednesday, MV Hebridean Isles resumed service with a 11.05am sailing from Brodick, but the MV Caledonian Isles’ ability to sail – with regards to the outcome of the sea trials and crewing availability – remains unknown.
Further inclement weather is forecast for this weekend and CalMac advise passengers making use of their services to download their app or follow them on Twitter or to sign up for service updates to receive timely updates and service announcements.
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