“Disrupting a Sailing is a Decision We Do Not Take Lightly”

Gaun yersels, CalMac.
From where I’m standing, your daily mantra ought to be, ‘disrupting a sailing is a decision we take with breathtaking regularity’.

However, before we even get to the sailings themselves, please allow me to tell you a tale from a few weeks back. It might appear to be a rather innocuous little tale, but it is one which I believe does chime with the general malaise which seems to pervade the governance of our whole ferry network.

My son embarks on his journey to Arran on the MV Glen Sannox. Yes, the same gleaming, brand-new vessel which was finally delivered only last year at over five times the original budget and seven years late, and having been recalled umpteen times since due to various technical faults.

This year, the vessel has just returned from her annual overhaul, a process which would normally take about two-to-three weeks max, but which somehow required a whopping three months in dry-dock, apparently to repair cracks in her hull due to ‘engine vibration’. You might think I’m making this up, but I swear I’m not. And remember that this is a spanking new boat we’re talking about here.

Anyway, my son is ravenous and all he can think about is the ‘full Scottish’ breakfast awaiting him onboard. So, he hits the cafeteria with considerable purpose. He orders the whole works … square sausage, links, crispy bacon, tattie scones, mushrooms, fried eggs, beans and the obligatory cup of tea. As you do. After a hard week’s toil, his gastric juices are not so much flowing as erupting. He shoves his heavily-laden plastic tray up to the very pleasant lady on the till and produces his bank card, his appetite in overdrive.

‘The card machine’s no’ workin’, son,’ she grovels most apologetically. ‘I’m afraid we can only take cash.’

At long, long last the boat is back in service, but apparently the technology is not. So, he delves into his pockets in a frantic attempt to locate as many banknotes and coins as he can, and manages to retrieve the not inconsiderable sum of three-pounds-twenty, then presents his treasure trove to the same pleasant lady, pleading as to what he might be able to purchase for that same sum. One mug, one teabag, a dribble of hot water and 70p change is the answer. He then watches in horror as his ‘full Scottish’ gets shovelled back into the containers from which they came.

There’s nothing else for it, so he trudges back most despondently to a seat by the window to sip his tea and listen to the Glen Sannox’s mighty engines vibrating in competition with the rumblings in his stomach, the former doubtless to induce yet more cracks in the brand-new ship’s vast hull and the latter destined to remain unrequited for a good couple of hours at least.

Anyway, in the event, my son and I enjoyed a fabulous week in Kildonan, where we took in the Cheltenham horse-racing festival. And then, before we had even managed to expunge CalMac’s daily mantra from our consciousness, it was time for us to return to the mainland, a few banknotes stuffed in our pockets just in case the card machine was still on strike. (Which, alas, it was.)

The same mainland on which I would then find myself stranded for three whole days afterwards, along with half of Arran’s totally scunnered population and most of the island’s supplies of food, medicines and other essential commodities for that matter.

But why, I hear you ask? Well, because not only had the Glen Sannox broken down again immediately after her three-month sabbatical, costing taxpayers yet millions more in repairs, but our other ‘lifeline’ ferry, the ancient and now sadly-creaking MV Caledonian Isles on which over fourteen million quid has already been spent shoring it up, had also given up the ghost. In short, Arran’s main port of Brodick was now totally cut off from the mainland.

When I eventually got checked in for my journey back home to Arran on the newly bandaged-up Caledonian Isles, three whole days late, the vehicle queue at Ardrossan harbour resembled a major Red Cross operation, a long snaking entourage of articulated lorries and vans carrying tons of food and other essential supplies back to the island.

The next thing we knew, the early spring sun was shining, the Glen Sannox was back in business alongside the Caledonian Isles and all was hunky-dory once more. Happy days were here again, surely? Well, they were until the Glen Sannox’s port main engine threw in the towel the very next day.

And that was when the fog came down as well. Not, I hasten to add, a euphemism for our ferry industry’s deplorable lack of clarity and direction, but actual fog … like real pea-soup stuff.
And so, the old Caledonian Isles, crocked for many months due to innumerable technical issues, was unable to sail this time because of poor visibility. And, of course, right slap-bang in the middle of this fog-bound mess, the pristine new Glen Sannox suddenly came back into service, whereupon it couldn’t sail either because of the fog.

Anyway, the fog eventually cleared, the sun shone and our wee island once more had two ferries operating from Brodick. Whoopy-doo, happy days again and all that?
You must be bloody joking.

The following day, the Caledonian Isles, which at 33 years of age should by now be relaxing on some Mediterranean beach, cigar in hand and sipping on a Marguerita, broke down yet again, its own port main engine goosed this time. And as if that wasn’t enough, the next again the Glen Sannox once more hit the buffers and the island was completely cut off from the Ayrshire mainland.

As one of my dear friends used to say, ‘it’s déjà vu a’ ower again.’

At the time of writing, eight out of ten of CalMac’s main ferries are out of action, or eighty-percent of them, if you will. On a personal note, I feel really sorry for our port staff and ferry crew, all of whom in my experience anyway, work very hard and are invariably helpful and courteous. Can you even begin to imagine how demotivating it must feel to witness your employer being castigated and ridiculed on an almost daily basis?

However, as life has surely taught us, the buck must always stop somewhere. And for what it’s worth, I personally will be writing – yet again – to those who ultimately carry the can for this seemingly never-ending shambles, Ministers of the Scottish Government.

If you happen to agree that the current ferry situation is completely intolerable, might I humbly suggest that you contact Fiona Hyslop MSP, Cabinet Secretary for Transport, because it is on her desk that the real accountability lies.

One word of advice, though. If my arithmetic serves me correctly, she is the eighth transport secretary in recent memory, so you might want to be quick about it, or that ship may soon have sailed.

Oh, the irony.