Ever since I saw the Mull & Iona councillor with an accent from the deep south, telling a Tory-run Holyrood committee to look abroad for advice on how to run a ferry service because Scotland has ‘one of the worst in the world‘, I’ve been doing just that for him.

Washington State Ferries (WSF) around Seattle and British Columbia Ferries around Vancouver are the most similar to CalMac in terms of scale, government ownership and climate, though in the latter case, more southerly and more moderate.

Both are demonstrably in far worse condition than CalMac, with older boats breaking down more often, higher prices for lower reliability and furious travellers close to violence.

You can read a full analysis revealing CalMac’s superiority over BC Ferries and others, but not WSF, here: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/10/01/factcheck-calmac-probably-best-comparable-ferry-service-in-world/

On WSF, we had this yesterday: https://talkingupscotlandtwo.com/2023/10/31/anger-as-7-out-of-14-state-owned-ferries-out-of-service-and-no-new-builds-until-2027-or-later-in-washington-state/

Today, moving from the fake ‘ferry fiasco’ in Scotland and ‘ferrymaggedon’ in Vancouver, we have today:

‘It’s ferry Tetris’: Washington ferry issues leave passengers stranded overnight.

Washington’s fleet of ferries has mounting problems and officials told us there’s no end in sight as to when these problems will be solved. Right now only 14 of the state’s 21 ferries are up and running. That means seven of them are currently out of service.

The most recent ferry to be taken off its route is the Chimicum. It was docked over the weekend after a rod got caught in one of its engines. Ian Sterling from Washington State Ferries said they moved the Issaquah from the Edmonds Kingston crossing to the Seattle Bremerton crossing to make up for the loss.

“It’s ferry Tetris right and there’s no good solutions but you can leave Bremerton with zero boats, zero service and that’s not going to make people very happy and it’s not fair to that route,” Sterling said.

On top of that, there are staffing issues. Malachi Belluscio lives on Vashon Island and told us he tried to get the last ferry out of Fauntleroy Monday night but learned when he got there it had been canceled.

“To not have a way home is really an awful feeling,” he said. “Especially when it was like wicked cold last night and we don’t have blankets in the car.”

https://www.kiro7.com/news/local/its-ferry-tetris-washington-ferry-service-issues-leave-passengers-stranded-overnight/C6PAVO6UW5D2ZJ6RUMO3DHB2LY/

Imagine how Reporting Scotland would have presented Malachi?

Looks like a good time for that Mull councillor to make that information gathering trip.