Relief for CalMac as vessels return, but six still out
CalMac has been hard at work to get its service back on track after yesterday’s "unprecedented" situation saw seven vessels out of service.
Yesterday CalMac said the situation "may be the most pressing we’ve faced" in a statement to island communities, as it faced having three breakdowns while four vessels were in overhaul. This morning that worsened, as another vessel, the MV Coruisk, suffered a fault to her generator.
MV Glen Sannox returned to service at 3.55pm after spending most of Thursday out of service. Her sailing was the first on Arran’s main route all day. But she was again taken off service today so a permanent fix could be made to her exhaust.
Thankfully, two more boats are now back in the water, the MV Caledonian Isles and MV Coruisk.
The Cale Isles broke down earlier this week, and was repaired today, whereas the Coruisk had a technical issue this morning but was back on the water within hours.
CalMac CEO Duncan Mackison said: “Though MV Caledonian Isles and MV Coruisk have returned to service, we’re
“This disruption is affecting virtually every island served by a major vessel and we are profoundly sorry for that. We are doing what we can to restore these services as quickly as possible.
“We’re making progress with MV Isle of Islay’s outstanding snagging issues, and we’re taking MV Glen Sannox off service until Tuesday to try and permanently resolve the exhaust issue. Our aim is to get services back to planned levels ahead of and during the upcoming Easter weekend and holidays, and we’ll continue to keep island communities informed of our efforts to do so.”
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The ferry provider also gave an update on the sea trials for the MV Isle of Islay.
CalMac said that the crew are doing their utmost to prepare the vessel for service and have resolved more snagging issues and identified a suspected root cause of the intermittent issue with the power management system.
Troubleshooting and sea trials are scheduled to continue today and tomorrow.
To provide certainty to customers travelling early next week, CalMac will continue with a single-vessel MV Finlaggan timetable on Monday 30 and Tuesday 31 March.
Bosses are hopeful that, subject to further trials over the weekend, MV Isle of Islay may be able to begin a phased entry to service on Monday and Tuesday and carry out additional sailings alongside MV Finlaggan. This will be confirmed on Sunday at the earliest.
MV Isle of Arran remains off service with an issue with her fire suppression system. An engineer from the system provider is due onboard this afternoon.
Whilst she has been off service CalMac have found damaged couplings on the bow thruster and requirement to source spares and carry out repairs to this means that she is unavailable until these are sourced and fitted, likely to be early next week.
Options for other Oban based ferries to stop at Craignure in the meantime are being reviewed.
Current service provision:
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MV Caledonian Isles providing five returns per day to Arran (Ardrossan-Brodick) and MV Catriona is operating Claonaig-Lochranza
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Mull’s main route (Oban-Craignure) is served by MV Coruisk. MV Loch Fyne is operating on Lochaline-
Fishnish and MV Loch Riddon is operating on Tobermory-Kilchoan
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Islay served by single-vessel MV Finlaggan
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Barra & South Uist have a shared-service with MV Isle of Mull, with more callings at Barra as the island only has one direct mainland link (Oban-Castlebay). South Uist customers can travel via Lochmaddy-Uig, where we’ve amended the Lochmaddy-Tarbert-Uig timetable to increase frequency to Lochmaddy and reduce frequency to to Tarbert (on Harris). Customers on Harris can travel via Tarbert and be accommodated on Loch Seaforth (Stornoway-Ullapool)
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Coll, Tiree & Colonsay has a reduced service due to MV Lord of the Isles, which is smaller than MV Clansman, operating the route. MV Clansman is covering Uig-Tarbert-Lochmaddy with MV Hebrides in planned maintenance.
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