From BBC UK today:
Questions asked over Channel Islands ferry service. Deputies in Guernsey have asked the island’s States to hold a briefing on what is that latest situation is for a passenger and freight ferry service.Condor Ferries announced it had been working with stakeholders to overcome a “temporary but challenging time”.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c19yejpw41lo
BBC UK is, of course soft-soaping the situation in a way that BBC Scotland would not.
Here’s what Guernsey Press had to say 8 years ago!
Ferry fiasco may scupper islands’ good reputation. It was hailed as a craft that would signal a brave new world in ferry travel between the islands and the UK, yet Condor’s £50m. Liberation has so far failed to live up to the hype – so much so that, if not sorted out shortly, there’s a danger that it will damage our reputation as a tourist destination. Time for Deputy Kevin Stewart to step in, reckons Peter Roffey
https://guernseypress.com/comment/peter-roffey/2015/05/21/ferry-fiasco-may-scupper-islands-good-reputation/
The islanders are still waiting.
Update: From stewartb, our Depute Ferry Correspondent, below, we see that Condor Ferries is at risk of going out of business, proposes a huge price increase and only has one all-weather ferry.
So, we can add Condor Ferries to the list of ferry services that Scottish Islanders should be grateful they don’t have to suffer:
If Colonsay, population135, owned by Alex Howard of Oxford, was a Greek island, they’d get no ferry service at all in the winter months and might even have seen the horrors of a late passenger being pushed to his death in the screws.
In New Zealand they might have drifted toward the rocks, after paying twice the CalMac fares, in an elderly ferry only to hear that the incoming conservative government has refused to pay $3bn for new ferries and harbour facilities that the outgoing Labour government costed at half that. The much-needed new ferries are now cancelled.
In British Columbia in Canada, they might wait all day and never get a ferry to visit island relatives, on ferries far older than Scotland has, despite BC Ferries operating in calmer seas than CalMac must, making massive profits of nearly $100m and paying dividends of $6m.
On the Isle of Wight off the South Coast of England, locals ‘slam’ ferry service cuts and prices twice those of CalMac as the owners make £12m profits and pay £8m in dividends.
On the islands off Kingston, Ontario (population 2 000), aging unreliable ferries must keep going two years after new ferries, built in Romania and ferried 4 800 miles to Canada are still not operational. There are three shipyards in Hamilton on Lake Ontario, 200 miles from Kingston.
Finally in Washington State USA, islands off the glittering city of Seattle, in the wealthiest country in the world, the privatised WS ferries are over-priced, unreliable, elderly rust-buckets held together by chewing gum and good intentions. of 21 vessels only 13 are in service and only 9 are really seaworthy.
Meanwhile in Scotland, the smallest of island communities get a cheap, year-round service in the youngest of fleets, massively subsidised at tax-payer expense and by the SNP Government, but run to the media over the inconvenience of a minor reduction in service.
Sources:
https://thetyee.ca/News/2023/10/23/Crisis-BC-Ferries/
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.bcferries.com/web_image/h08/had/8950543417374.pdf
https://mynorthwest.com/3942167/new-ferry-boats-in-washington-at-least-four-years-away/#//
Talking-up Scotland 
Man on fire 🙂
You are so good at this , an expert I’d say
Thank you thank you thank you for all you are doing
In my opinion you are the leading authority challenging the abysmal lying toadies at BBC Scotland we are so so lucky to have you doing this .
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Thanks Top Groovy Character (?)
I like to think, I’m Scotland’s widest ferry correspondent
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Some friends and relatives think I’ve gone a bit (insert nautical metaphor) on this topic.
Hell’s teeth!
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There seems to be more going on with Condor Ferries! From the Jersey Evening News in last 24 hours: ‘Condor dismiss rumours firm has gone into administration’.
It reports: ‘Just days after the company proposed a SHOCK 18.7% RISE IN FREIGHT COSTS – and as the Jersey and Guernsey governments began berthing trials for a new freight ship run by a rival operator – the firm was forced to clarify its position as speculation mounted that it had gone into receivership.’
Source https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2023/12/17/condor-dismiss-rumours-firm-has-gone-into-administration/
In the same article we learn that Condor is owned by a consortium of Columbia Threadneedle Investments and Brittany Ferries.
It news report has: ‘questions were raised over the financing of Condor’s new conventional freight and passenger ship, Islander, which entered service this autumn’.
‘It was initially announced that the vessel had been jointly purchased by Condor and the Guernsey Investment Fund – of which Guernsey’s government is an investor. Days later, it was announced that Condor and the States of Guernsey – and not the Guernsey Investment Fund – would each be investing £3 million and that in addition the States would be loaning the operator £26 million, to be repaid at a fixed rate over ten years.’
What is it about ferries?
Condor’s website describes its fleet of four vessels: one trimaran (Condor Liberation: it’s 13 years old); one catamaran (Condor Voyager: it’s 23 years old) plus two ‘conventional’ mono-hull vessels.
I noted in passing that the company uses the description ‘all-weather ship’ for JUST ONE of its four vessels, one of the conventional mono-hulls and its oldest vessel, the Commodore Clipper built in 1999. The other conventional vessel (Condor Islander) was built in 2005 but just recently entered service for Condor.
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Hey, I do the ferries!
Will pinch some of this and update the piece and repost
John
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Perhaps it is just wishful thinking on my part but I keeping hoping that one day some Scottish Government Minister will stand up in Holyrood and give such an equally robust defence of their policies and what Scots are fortunate to have that rUK is missing.
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The Channel Islands are, of course, an important part of the City of London’s money laundering racket along with places like the Isle of Man, Gibraltar, the British Virgin Islands, The Bahamas, Belize, etc. in these places private profit and not paying tax are the raison d’etre of the local government, with the hoi polloi having limited rights, but kept reasonably sweet. So, do not expect the BBC to go in heavy on the private ferry operator.
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I can understand BBC Scotland’s and the newspapers’ stance on the ferry business and on CalMac in particular. It is the BBC’s job in Scotland to undermine anything specifically Scottish so that viewers/listeners can conclude that British Is Best. Given that they’ve been at that ploy for decades and it’s what they’re paid for, you’d think the media would do their job a bit better.
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