Less than a week ago, the Herald’s Scott Wright was just back from Croatia to tell us how CalMac could learn from his one experience of just one of their many crossings and operators.
Today, Alison Rowatt tells us about one day, ‘a few weeks ago‘ when her day was spoiled:
We were booked on the 09.45 to Brodick. In the queue early, small people and dog excited, can’t wait to get there and start the holiday. The sailing time came and went. Still parked in the queue. The word went from car to car: it’s too windy to sail. In Scotland? In July? In a great hunk of steel built to withstand the worst of the weather? A few unfortunate members of staff were sent out to spread the word. They were quickly doughnutted by anxious passengers wondering what to do. Some were told to wait, there might be space on the next ferry. Or cancel and rebook for later in the day. No, they couldn’t say when or if there would be sailings. Welcome to Scotland.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/politics/viewpoint/23663824.not-sea-another-calmac-drama/
Thick or whit? Great hunks are more likely to capsize in high winds and heavy seas than something smaller with lower sides or designed to survive anything – has she never seen a lifeboat? In July?
Does she think this one in February 2022 should have just risked it?
She goes on to use this one experience to regurgitate all the context-free rants about CalMac we’ve seen over the last few months.
What’s specially awful about having to wait for a later crossing that same day? What does she think happens with Channel ferries or, heaven forbid, with British Columbia Ferries?
The day in question seems to be July 1st, a Saturday! 4 out of 8 sailings were cancelled that day. Otherwise reliability has been 100%.
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The “Ferry Chaos” series seems to have be a disaster for the Herald and no doubt its circulation.
Rather than damaging the SNP, which is just what this is all about, it has just highlighted how ridiculous and petty the Herald and its so called “journalists” have become.
Oh for the time when we could have at least one Michelle Mone story per day from the Herald. I wonder why that has stopped? I am sure money to support the ailing paper has nothing to do with it either 🙂
LikeLiked by 7 people
Moaners gonna moan. No matter what. If something was 99.99 positive they would moan about that 01%.
LikeLiked by 6 people
We spent a whole from about 10 am till 7 pm “cruising” on the great hump of a NorthLink ferry in Aberdeen Bay in an easterly Force 8 gale watching boats with less above the water come and go as they pleased.
The Ferry couldn’t stay within the channel or turn in the harbour with the wind on its side.
Eventually abandoned the attempt and continued down to Rosyth with its wider channel.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Re What’s specially awful about having to wait for a later crossing that same day?
There is nothing wrong with that.
When travelling to Italy, about 20 years ago, I was reluctant to board my ferry. People waiting could see waves crashing over the whole length of the ferry, and several other ferries, queuing up in the distance. Eventually my ferry, in a stunning manoevre squeezed through the narrow gap in the sea walls and docked. It’s passengers disembarked looking rather queezy, and there was a delay while the crew cleaned up the mess. I hesitated about boarding and was practically one of the last passengers to get on because even though the ferry was docked, it was still moving up and down like an elevator. When I was younger, I had been on board a Channel ferry in the middle of the night that was caught in a storm, and many people were throwing up. With that thought still in my mind, I decided to remove my luggage and get off. I booked into a hotel with a couple of other travellers who were minded to do the same. Booked into a hotel and resumed travelling the next day.
LikeLiked by 5 people
Ms Rowat does ‘smug’ instinctively. She believes she knows more than anyone else and tells you so.
Laws of Physics? Ms Rowat ignores them because they are not compatible with the ‘story’ she has composed.
After the investigation into the conduct The Sun and other newspapers following the Milly Dowler intrusion and recommendations regarding restraints on journalistic conduct, she arrogantly brushed them aside with a ‘what does the public know about journalistic practice and why journalists must have total freedom?’ Journalists must have the freedom to intrude, lie, malign but never be held to account because how otherwise can the ‘truth’ be uncovered? And by ‘truth’ is meant what the journalist has just written. In the next breath s/he might write something completely contradicting the earlier ‘truth’, but this new piece is indisputably ‘true’.
And what about the earlier piece?
‘What earlier piece? All that matters is this piece.’
LikeLiked by 3 people
So Ms Rowatt, travelling with her excited ‘small people’ – Ms Rowatt who on other matters impacting her children would presumably favour the precautionary principle – feels entitled to dispute the judgement of a master mariner on sea state and safety in order to further her political ends?
LikeLiked by 4 people
Ms Mowat is an idiot. Fortunately the decision to sale isn’t hers to make. At sea these boats can take a bit of a pounding but getting on and off the loading berth takes a great deal of skill and courage when you have high winds and rolling swells. The video demonstrates superbly better than any words of mine. Damage to the ship, damage to the harbour entrance and damaged to the loading berth will see a ferry unloading berth out of action for montths.
LikeLiked by 4 people
Ahh that wind in Scotland , clearly she did not expect wind in July on the west coast of Scotland so that tells us she is not a well travelled person across Scotland because you would be very lucky to find a single place in Scotland where it can not be very very windy even in July .
I say to her , before you do any more journeys have a quick look at google earth and see exactly where Scotland is on this planet , tell her to notice the two big white blobs on google earth one at the top Greenland and one at the bottom Antarctica , hopefully she will notice how close Scotland is to Greenland 😃
LikeLiked by 2 people