In the Herald today, Scott Wright, Deputy Business Editor, uses his recent trip to Croatia to do an up-to-date piece comparing his experience with the drivel most of Scotland’s media have been serving up in the ferry galley. After thirty seconds thinking he should research the topic, he goes for a quick ‘what we did on our holidays‘ piece:

That’ll do eh?

I’ve got half an hour to spare. Let’s see if can get something a bit more substantial for that headline the boss wants to run?

Croatian ferries are privately-run, by numerous companies of all sizes and none are obliged to publish performance figures, as CalMac must do daily (93%-98% on time and zero incidents for the last week).

So, to balance the Herald view, there’s the above ferry with 340 on board drifting out to sea at night in a gale, at first, unable to be rescued by two tugs, for 12 hours.

See? Those CalMac cancellations that so annoy ‘islanders’, just because it’s a bit windy. Grow a pair bosun!

Commander Retahd Julian Cholmondly of South Uist

Just a one-off? Can happen to any ferry service?

Ferry ‘Marko Polo’, which over the weekend, crashes into Croatian island of Sit  is still stranded, despite the efforts of rescue team. The Jadrolinija’s ferry Marco Polo was on its regular route Rijeka – Split – Dubrovnik – Bari (Italy) when it ran aground on the island Sit (small island located between Island Žut and Island Pašman) in vicinity of Sibenik and Zadar. The incident happened last Saturday at 2.50 am.

https://www.find-croatia.com/ferry-marko-polo-stranded-on-the-island-near-sibenik-croatia/

Approached by Reporting Croatia‘s Darko Stankovic, the Croatian Prime minister told him to FO.

Here’s another one-man’s impression from June 2023, only days ago:

We went from split to Brac and back. It was a terrible experience foot passengers mixed up with moving vehicles on the way over a man took pity on us with 2 large suitcases and us being in our mid 70 s there was a narrow escalator up to first foor smelly dirty looking cafe and more difficult steps to open deck. On the way back same procedure but the man refused to let us leave our suitcases on car deck he was very rude told us to go go now up the narrow escalator going down to get off was a nightmare for us on stopped escalator with luggage. I was really breathless and my heart pounding when we got to the bottom. We had had a wonderful holiday on brac which was ruined by the ferry never again and I advice anyone not to use this ferry it is dangerous and not fit for purpose would never be allowed in the Uk we didn’t see any safety notices and no staff during the crossing

https://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUserReviews-g295370-d12860269-r901514072-Jadrolinija-Split_Split_Dalmatia_County_Dalmatia.html#REVIEWS

Finally and also from days ago, but too long to post in full here:

My bad trip – we wanted a charming money-saver but the overnight ferry was The Shining on the sea: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/jan/20/my-bad-trip-we-wanted-a-charming-money-saver-but-the-overnight-ferry-was-the-shining-on-the-sea

I’m off….Arran anyone?