2023 Calmac Ferry Crisis

[islaydarkblue]

Calmac Ferries is one of my specialist subjects.
The current Calmac Ferries crisis has been brewing up for years thanks the SNP controlled Scottish Government’s failure to keep their Clyde and Hebridean ferries fleet up to date.
The Scottish Government own all these ferries plus the ferries on the Northlink Route through their company CMAL which from memory is Caledonian Marine Assets Limited.
Calmac Ferries Limited is owned by David MacBrayne Limited who in turn is owned by the Scottish Government ministers.
Calmac is the operating company on the Clyde and Hebridean ferry routes and as they are Scottish Government owned their management who are effectively civil servants do as they are told by the Scottish Government ministers.
Serco PLC is the operating company on the Northlink sailings but they do not have the same problems as the ferries on the Northlink ferry routes are fairly new. They are probably about 15 years old.
The main culprits for the current Calmac ferry shambles are Alex Salmond, Nicola Sturgeon and Derek MacKay plus the management of CMAL.
The Green MSPs grubby hands are all over the fiasco concerning the two new ferries being built at Ferguson’s Shipyard on the Clyde which are currently 5 years late and counting before being handed over to Calmac and going into service on the Ardrossan to Brodick route and the Uig Triangle route.
Some of you may have seen the Mark Daly Disclosure Scotland programme The Great Ferry Scandal on BBC1 Scotland last December (2022) which stated all the incompetence regarding the awarding of the contract to Ferguson’s Shipyard which had been bought out of Administration by Alex Salmond’s pal Jim McColl in July 2014 two months before the September 2014 independence referendum.
I have some information which I received as a result of two separate tip offs which never appeared on the Disclosure Scotland Great Ferry Scandal programme.
Alex Salmond is no longer a friend of Jim McColl thanks to McColl losing a lot of money plus future subcontracting work on new British naval vessels with BAE.
I have plenty more information but it would be helpful if posters could ask me questions.

[BCram]

Is there a problem with the weight of electric cars and their additional weight? Seems there could be a similar problem for multi storey car parks.

[islaydarkblue]

Is there a problem with the weight of electric cars and their additional weight? Seems there could be a similar problem for multi storey car parks.

Yes. However nothing will done about it until it is too late. The number of vehicles travelling on ferries will have to be reduced due to the extra weight of the electric cars. The longer the range of these cars the bigger and heavier the batteries which will have to be installed in these cars.
When Commercial Companies are forced by Government to only use electric powered HGVs then the number of vehicles travelling on the ferries will be greatly reduced.
At present a fully laden diesel powered HGV weighs 44 tons with the MV Hebridean Isles ferry which has not carried any foot passengers, cars and vans since 2nd January 2023 can carry five 44 ton HGVs and eight cars (Source Islay Community Council Ferry Committee).
When Electric powered HGVs become the norm then the MV Hebridean Isles ferry assuming that it has not been scrapped which should have happened years ago will probably only be able to carry three or maybe four HGVs.
These heavier electric cars and HGVs are going to wreck the roads.
If you do not believe me then I suggest that you take a trip to the island of Islay where you will see the damage that the 44 tons HGVs have done to main roads on the island because there are too many whisky distilleries on the island.

[Deeranged]

If this is your 'specialist subject' why is it that you're not certain your recollection of the acronym CMAL is correct? I was going to suggest you contact Mastermind and propose Calmac Ferries as your specialist subject but now I'm not so sure.

Another question - would you prefer that all the people employed, in Scotland, on the construction of the late ferries were unemployed and that the construction had gone to somewhere like Poland or Singapore?

[Deeranged]

would you prefer that all the people employed, in Scotland, on the construction of the late ferries were unemployed and that the construction had gone to somewhere like Poland or Singapore?

Come on Islay, answer this question.

[The AuldYin]

Come on Islay, answer this question.

No one whether dockyard worker or not should be guaranteed a pay packet. Why should the Scots government guarantee a shipbuilder work and not a house builder? Forcing the tax payer to buy work is a disgrace. If they can't compete against Poland or Singapore that's their ****ing problem not the taxpayers.

[Deeranged]

No one whether dockyard worker or not should be guaranteed a pay packet. Why should the Scots government guarantee a shipbuilder work and not a house builder? Forcing the tax payer to buy work is a disgrace. If they can't compete against Poland or Singapore that's their ****ing problem not the taxpayers.

To be fair, you can't really build a house overseas and live in it here in Scotland so not a good comparison.

I fully agree that nobody should be entitled to a wage but when that wage is likely to be fed straight back into the local economy is it not better for the SG that the Scottish economy benefits rather than the Polish or Singapore economy?

The SG tried using a yard in the middle east to fabricate wind turbines - they had to be shipped to Nigg for rework and the coating had to be repaired, literally couldn't get close to them because big chunks of the coating were falling off. Maybe they learned lessons from that?

[The AuldYin]

To be fair, you can't really build a house overseas and live in it here in Scotland so not a good comparison.

I fully agree that nobody should be entitled to a wage but when that wage is likely to be fed straight back into the local economy is it not better for the SG that the Scottish economy benefits rather than the Polish or Singapore economy?

The SG tried using a yard in the middle east to fabricate wind turbines - they had to be shipped to Nigg for rework and the coating had to be repaired, literally couldn't get close to them because big chunks of the coating were falling off. Maybe they learned lessons from that?

Aye don't pay for goods till they've passed QC it's not rocket science. Surely you can see what happens to projects once folk realise there's a blank cheque every week? Sick kids, trams, ferries, etc, etc. Buying work has never worked up till now, it benefits too few.

[islaydarkblue]

No one whether dockyard worker or not should be guaranteed a pay packet. Why should the Scots government guarantee a shipbuilder work and not a house builder? Forcing the tax payer to buy work is a disgrace. If they can't compete against Poland or Singapore that's their ****ing problem not the taxpayers.

The Ferguson’s Shipyard workers knew at the time of the contract being awarded that the two new ferries could not be built at the same side by side in the Ferguson Shipyard.
However that did not appear to matter. As long as Nicola Sturgeon was photographed with the Ferguson Shipyard workers at the time contract was officially announced a mere technicality like that did not matter.
There was another problem with ferries 801(Glen Sannox) and 802.
The SNP controlled Scottish Government pandered to the Greens and decided to install an unproven technology on the two new ferries namely they were to be LNG/diesel powered. LNG was an unproven fuel for large car ferries in Scotland.
However as long Wee Pat and his fellow tree hugging Greens were happy is does not matter for the people living on the Scottish islands who were desperate for these two new ferries to be built and go onto service as soon as possible.
A further £8 million was being spent installing LNG tanks at Ardrossan and Uig on Skye to power 801 and 802 ferries.

[islaydarkblue]

Come on Islay, answer this question.

I received a tip off from a fellow patient in the Royal Alexandra Hospital in Paisley in September 2017 who told me that Jim McColl the owner of Ferguson’s Shipyard paid off skilled Scottish workers and replaced them with cheap labour from Eastern Europe.
This patient’s friend was a shop steward in Ferguson’s Shipyard. When Jim McColl was making a visit to his shipyard my fellow patient’s friend complained to McColl about him paying off skilled Scottish workers and replacing them with cheap labour from Eastern Europe.
The shop steward was paid off at the end of that week.