Category Archives: ferries

Published in Press and Journal: 21/03/2011

IT WAS my first meeting about ferries at which Sunday sailings weren’t mentioned. Not even once, unless it was in that lull when I nodded off before Councillor Charlie Nicolson tore off his shirt and turned into a gallant movie superhero. More of that later. Powerful decision-makers from the CalMac group of companies and the Scottish Government were lined up in a row to tell us residents of Lewis why we didn’t need two ferries to Ullapool and to just stop going on about it.

Good news on the presentations and charts: passenger numbers are going up a few per cent each year because of the SNP’s wonderful vote-harvesting RET scheme which has seen so many abandon the other party of empty promises.

Everyone agrees we need a bigger, better ferry to cope with all that than the present tub, the motor vessel Isle of Lewis.

She has good passenger accommodation, though. She can ship 1,000 dizzy Mod-goers back to their heathery island home from host towns like Dunoon and Oban.

And she has well-positioned railings for them to lean on while emptying their stomachs into the Minch while all the time keeping time with the swaying multitude warbling Eilean Fraoich.

That’s a song about a heathery island, by the way. It is much-loved by people from a heathery island who always sing it when they leave a heathery island or return to a heathery island, especially if they’ve had a wee drink.

So what answer have the bosses of the state-owned ferry company? Well, how about . . . a single vessel that will carry just 600.

Eh? Still, she’ll probably be faster, so she will cut the sailing time and will make 10 sailings a day? Er, not quite. In fact, not at all.

The Edinburgh mandarins got their calculators out and decided 600 passengers was quite enough. The Isle of Lewis rarely has more than 400 or 500 on board, they say. Even if the number travelling goes up a few per cent each year due to the fabulous RET scheme which assured electoral victory and enduring warm hugs here for the entire SNP, it will still be big enough for 25 years.

Except at Royal National Mods, the start and finish of the trades holidays and, of course, most Sundays.

The new ferry would cost a cool £50million. She certainly will take more vehicles, but she would be only a knot or two faster. Probably 18 knots at most. May take 15 minutes off the journey at best.

That made smoke come out of Councillor Charlie’s ears. He wants a faster boat because it is something “which everyone in this community wants”. He went on and on about that.

The captain of the outfit that owns the ferries, Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (Clam), clammed up at that point. He saw Charlie’s eyes narrowing. He wasn’t happy. He was changing. He was not Charles Nicholson any more; he was someone else. Someone mean, moody, silent. The background music rose to a crescendo then: yes, yes, yes, Charles Nicholson was Charles Bronson in The Magnificent Seven.

Except there was only one of him.

The other councillors deserted our new hero. The few there said little – except Donald Manford, who is not really known for sitting on his hands and saying nothing.

Most councillors, it seems, could not pull themselves away from Coronation Street to attend a pointless ferries meeting, so poor Charlie was left to plead the case for a faster boat “which everyone in this community wants”, almost on his lonesome ownsome.

The Clam cove claimed fuel consumption would soar at these cross-channel and Irish ferry speeds. Costs would be eye-watering.

“You are only maws, after all,” I thought I heard him say, but maybe that was someone behind me. I’m really not sure.

We had tears in our eyes as Charlie vainly tried to fight the good fight for faster ferries. On his own. With no one with him.

The ferries fellow eventually agreed to “look again” at his proposals, but he hummed and hawed. The faster a ferry, the more fuel you need to run it and it is ever so slightly dear, you know.

Look again? Is that the best he could do? It’s going to be a no, then, Charlie.

All round the country, ferries are getting faster. Everywhere except between Ullapool and God’s own island, where we must put up with a quality of service that was provided elsewhere 50 years ago.

The Isle of Man has had SeaCats for donkeys. Its ferry company operates two of them to and from Douglas.

They chug along at 35 knots and, if necessary, can do 40 knots, although they don’t like to do that unless they have to because, according to a recent interview by their boss, it costs “a little bit more”. Not too eye-watering, then?

Companies like Condor also have fantastic ferries crossing to France. You know the ones; they look like white whales with their mouths open. Their average cruising speeds are also 38 knots. Whoosh.

If we had that speed across the Minch, we would be in Ullapool before we stood up to get that second cup of tea and bacon roll.

That’s it. That must be why CalMac is not so keen on having a faster ferry. It would mean we wouldn’t have enough time to tuck into those expensive sandwiches, those eggs and chips and that not-so-bad chicken curry that makes a voyage in an unbearably slow tub almost bearable.

Now, here’s a thing. If the unloved Labour Party was to actually get off its collective bottom, stop trying to block the Harris-to-Skye seven-day service and promise to get us a faster ferry – which we know “everyone in this community wants” – some of us would think they were worth voting for again.

Nah, that’s not going to happen, is it? Forget I said anything.