Headline story from BBC Scotland this morning:
Ferry operator Calmac has run up a £1.6 million bill for crewing cost for the Glen Sannox, which is still under construction.
Calmac has hired 14 staff to date and they’re all working on other vessels at the moment.
I can’t find the necessary crew size for the Glen Sannox but a Channel ferry requires 185 on one shift so needs at least 400 to cover all shifts, holiday, sickness absence?
Channel ferries are around twice the length. The Glen Sannox will take 1 000 passengers. A Channel ferry typically takes 2 000.
So, the Glen Sannox might need between 100 and 200 to cover all shifts?
Those 14? Less than 10% of eventual crew size.
Cost, £1.6 million. Average wage more than £100 000? Ferry nice!
Talking-up Scotland 
John,
Much has been said about the MV Pentalina.
The vessel was built in the Philippines and is designed by a Scottish naval architect who has links to the shipyard in that he wants the vessel probably built there.
Ruth Davidson previously commented that an entire Calmac fleet could be built in the Philippines for £250million rather than use Fergusons (or for that matter any European shipyard but she sneakily didn’t go there!)
When you look at the wages in the Philippines its obvious why the vessels are so cheap! In the yard where the Pentalina was built average wages for example will be probably around £5000 a year. (If at best!)
No wonder the price for a ship built there is low!
As most informed folks know it takes years to built up shipyard skills – ask the Koreans – it took them years to become recognised.
It will be the same with Fergusons and if Scotland or indeed the UK wants to regain its maritime status pumping money into shipyards and getting off military builds is a must but the Tories won’t risk it… they’ll rely on foreign yards.
Thanks for all your great work.
Bob
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Bluntly, it’s an excuse to recycle all their old material in order to keep the “Ferry Stories” propaganda gambit alive, and crowd anything else which may be of interest but remotely complimentary of SG off the page, HMS James Cook’s “impartiality” at it’s best.
What I did find interesting coincidence was this also being a 1 hour old story featuring Edward Mountain, with the “Why are Highly Protected Marine Areas so controversial?” story running in second place.
– The Tory news management team must have had an early coffee….
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https://archive.ph/oJ5OQ
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Do these wages/salaries include all The BBC journos ,The Herald journos , the Tory MSPs etc … who have dedicated their waking hours to publicise this Ferry Tale ?
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But they haven’t run up this bill have they? To do so implies that the 14 staff are sat in the shipyard twiddling their thumbs.
In fact they are out operating the existing service. As Bob commented just an excuse to keep the story running, after all its all they’ve got on the SG whereas with the ukg we have PPE, Ajax armoured vehicles to name but two
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