Desperation dogs ageing Herald ferry team with three gammons trying to do the work

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The 39 year-old MV Hebridean Isles saying ‘Ah’ to reveal its rust free doors.

Today, the Herald of Free Flotsam and Jetsam has from one of their ferry correspondents:

Rust dogs ageing CalMac fleet with two ferries sidelined for 3rd year

Oooh, there’ll be some creepy shots of rusty old boats in this, won’t there?

Nope.

All they have is a shot of the MV Clansman (25) looking great with not a trace of rust and the MV Caledonian Isles (30) with some not-rusty scuffs on the hull where a swell has pushed it against the wharf.

Try searching for ‘CalMac rusty ferries’, then select Images. All you get is a set of pristine vessels with not a trace of rust.

Take off the word ‘CalMac’ and search again. You’ll see more than a few now.

If rust is truly dogging the aging CalMac fleet, where are the pics?

Is the fleet ‘aging?’ No, the Calmac fleet is younger and/or more reliable than those operating just about anywhere comparable – USA, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Isle of Wight, Channel Islands, Greece.

2 of 34 ferries out of service? 7 out of 21 in dock in Washington State USA.

Finally, this is the kind of thing they have to report:

The latest to be kept in for repairs is 26-year-old MV Clansman which was due to return to service on February 9 but after user being told it will return on February 19, it has now been put back until at least Friday (February 23).

FFS! 4 days! 4 ******* days! Sack the minister!

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10 thoughts on “Desperation dogs ageing Herald ferry team with three gammons trying to do the work”

  2. Aye Martin the Ferryman no less, opening his latest ‘Exclusive’ https://archive.ph/FgqUH with the usual mixed metaphors – “Ferry services have been plunged into further ‘chaos’ as it emerged that two major vessels have been sidelined for a third successive year after faults including rust emerged during annual overhauls” – Including rust, shocking…..

    Martin quotes “But user groups were told two weeks ago that a true assessment and timeline will only be known in the coming weeks, once the vessel has been moved and a full assessment is made ” and goes on further to quote John Daniel Peteranna of the Lochboisdale Ferry Business Impact Group, or is that copy/paste ?

    Is this the mysterious owner quoted earlier in “FERRY cancellations have been “catastrophic” for South Uist, with one business owner saying it has had a bigger impact than the pandemic” – For sale, moral compass, unused….

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  3. Rusty Ferries!

    I blame the management of SG owned CMAL for irresponsibly allowing their ferries to be used in notoriously corrosive seawater.

    Everyone knows that the vessels would last a lot longer if they were kept in the dry and undercover

    Stewart McMutrie

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  4. Ferries.

    Its all Alex Salmond’s fault as according to DRoss he signed the deal about the ferries and he also nationalized the shipyard he really is “a stupid boy” I would have thought before asking questions you would be sure of your facts but as we all know that is not in his DNA and he wants to be FM it does not bear thinking about.

    Not a great fan of AS now but but give him his due he made a right fool of DRoss

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    1. DRoss made a fool out of DRoss, however Alex deftly assisted audience realisation that the pompous little ‘duck’ had no place in government by pressing on with his entirely fabricated nonsense and wasting valuable parliamentary time…

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  5. O/T but it’s still about ageing ships and about misleading claims. The latest news of a failed test of the UK’s system to deliver weapons of mass destruction is getting quite a lot of profile in the media. The BBC News website provides coverage – ‘‘Trident missile test fails for second time in a row’ – in which there are some ‘interesting’ statistics, including ones provided by the MoD. They beg some questions. This is a summary of what the statistics quoted by the BBC tell us:

    2024 – Trident missile test conducted by the Royal Navy – failed

    2016 – date of the PREVIOUS Trident missile test conducted by the RN – failed

    2012 – date of the LAST SUCCESSFUL Trident missile test conducted by the RN – no information is given on what if any failed tests by the RN occurred between 2012 and 2016

    12 – number of years since last successful Trident missile test by the RN

    1994 – date the RN’s Vanguard submarines which carry Trident missiles began patrols

    30 – number of years the RN’s Vanguard submarines with Trident missiles have been in service

    190 – the number of reportedly successful Trident missile tests according to MoD figures quoted by the BBC

    Taking the MoD’s figure at face value, by inference the 190 successful Trident missile tests occurred between 1994 and 2012 i.e. during a period of 18 years. This equates to c.10 missile tests per year, all successful. Of course, there may have been even more tests during that same period which were unsuccessful!

    From the BBC article, in the period 2016 to 2024 there have been ONLY TWO tests undertaken by the RN, both of which failed. So the questions seem obvious: (i) why has the missile testing programme apparently been slashed – from at least 10 tests per annum in the period 1994 to 2012 to just two tests since 2016? (ii) WHY REDUCE RATHER THAN INCREASE the number of tests during a period of evident failures?

    However, I SUSPECT THE 190 SUCCESSFUL TEST FIGURE IS NOT QUITE WHAT IT SEEMS! IS THE MOD BEING DISINGENUOUS?

    • were these 190 successul tests of Trident missiles ones actually undertaken from RN Vanguard class submarines or do they include tests of Trident from its other delivery system, namely the twelve United States Navy Ohio-class submarines?

    And if the latter, do US tests provide assurance of the present credibility of the UK’s nuclear deterrent? What follows is from the specialist defence news site, Navy Lookout: ‘A credible deterrent? Trident missile fails during test launch from HMS Vanguard’ (https://www.navylookout.com/a-credible-deterrent-trident-missile-fails-during-test-launch-from-hms-vanguard/ )

    It reports on the latest, the second in a row, failure of a UK Trident test: ’Since the RN draws missiles from a common pool shared with the USN, it raises the question of whether a second failure was JUST BAD LUCK OR INDICATES A SYSTEMIC PROBLEM WITH RN PROCEDURES OR THE INTERFACE BETWEEN BOAT AND MISSILE. Due to the incredible sensitivity around Trident technology and SSBNs, this kind of analysis can never be made public. THE LIMITED INFORMATION AVAILABLE SUGGESTS this was a technical, test-related issue and not the fault of the highly professional RN submariners or a problem with the newly refitted HMS Vanguard.’ (my emphasis)

    Now if the problem is with ‘RN procedures or the interface between boat and missile’ then successful tests achieved by US submarines is surely of limited significance when it comes to determining the reliability and effectiveness of UK defence. Arguably, the MoD should be giving out statistics for RN Trident tests – how may RN tests, over what period, with what outcomes?

    The Navy Lookout article also reports: ‘In June 2016 HMS Vengeance successfully launched a missile but it took off in the opposite direction intended, heading towards the US and range safety staff commanded the missile to self-destruct. THE CAUSE OF THIS HAS NEVER BEEN CONFIRMED BUT HUMAN ERROR SEEMS MORE LIKELY THAN A TECHNICAL PROBLEM.’ Was the ‘human error’ back in 2016 attributable to the same ‘highly professional RN submariners’? Is RN testing not designed to eliminate human error and technical problems? 

    Is there no journalist prepared to raise the obvious questions begged by the MoD’s figure of 190 successful tests?

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    1. Apparently HMS Vanguard, the sub in question, has just had a £500 million makeover but ferries, ferries. oh and zGrant zhapps was on board the sub when the test took place.

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    2. Labour are complicit in ballistic missiles!!!……..https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/27378/DefenceWhitePaper2006_Cm6994.p………..Westminster always thinking about Scotland…..

      “The deterrent is based in western Scotland at HM Naval Base Clyde. The submarines are based at Faslane and the warheads are stored, processed and maintained at the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Coulport. In-service maintenance of the Vanguard class is conducted at Faslane; while deep maintenance/refit is conducted at HM Naval Base Devonport in Plymouth.

      Decision making on the use of British nuclear weapons is a sovereign matter for the UK. There is no requirement to gain the approval of the United States or other NATO allies for their use and only the Prime Minister can authorise an instruction to fire.”……………Imagine what Starmer and his Scotland Office could do with this, Vote SNP….vote for Scottish Independence…..we need our country away from their madness and the express rights to make our own decisions!!!

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  6. Coming to a TV News channel where you are …on a loop (or via a snooze paper)….another episode of the (regurgitated) and (supposed) ‘SNP’ Ferries are bad soap opera via BritNat ‘news’ sources…..

    Viewers and readers please note this (story) is a repeat and thus some of the information within our content you may think is very familiar…..unfortunately circumstances dictate we must continue with this ‘news’ story as we apparently have been instructed to try our best to get the SNP MP’s out, and so currently we must then be seen to do our best to try and get more Labour MP’s elected in Scotland in the next GE…..I hope you will bear with us……as there is so much at stake….mainly us helping others (opposition parties) to try and save our UK…..thus we are compelled to keep bringing you this same story as we currently have so very little else to weaponsise against the SNP (but we are committed to finding (concocting) more smears and slurs against the SNP and obvs independence for Scotland also…. in the future……indeed to infinity and beyond….

    Your patience is appreciated (in a kind of like it or lump it way) but your support in this matter will be even more appreciated….which as support can be demonstrated by you voting for Labour candidates instead of SNP ones in the next GE ……..please note that if there is any negative input you, as a member of the public, also have against the SNP this can then be forwarded to us via our X (formerly twitter) account or in a succession of letters to our ‘Readers letters’ page……or we can platform your negativity on our Scottish news programmes…as every little bit helps (both us and too the opposition parties to the SNP) allegedly…..

    Rule Britannia (currently not ruling the waves ATM as it’s aircraft carriers are prone to always breaking down)……but we would prefer that you, the public would, like us, keep schtum upon that as it would provide an opposing argument (as in expose us) to our anti SNP catalogue of smears regarding the #SNPBAD Ferries in Scotland being the only bad maritime story in town (UK) ….I Thang Yew……

    NMRN

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