Mr Robertson, Primary 7, Room 12
The Herald’s Craig Paton (14?) wrote the above. Nope, me neither. Other media are having a slavering, low-intellect, feast on that huge £100 million figure that he’s built up. The average 11 year-old would be shocked at the idiocy and mendacity. Note, it’s ‘repair’ not ‘maintenance?’ Drip, drip, drip….
Anyhow, class:
If it costs £100 million to maintain 8 ferries for 10 years, how much did it cost to maintain 1 ferry, on average each year?
Bobby – Easy! Easy!
2 minutes later, Bobby has it, £0.125 million or 125 000.
Sounds a lot, but how do we decide it if it’s really a lot?
We’d need to know how long they’ve been in service, how big they are, how many people and cars or lorries they carry and how many miles they do in a year, how much a new one would cost.
One of the 8 listed is the MV Isle of Mull, 4 700 tonnes, still in service after 37 years, carries 962 passengers and 70 cars
The Oban to Craignure run, which she was built for is 10 miles each way and there are 6 daily sailings, so 120 miles per day and around 44 000 per year.
So, £0.125 million divided by 44 000, is
Maintenance cost per mile £2 80p, for a boat weighing 4 000 tonnes, carrying around a 1 000 folk safely, and that would cost at least £60 million to replace, based on the deals with a Turkish yard, announced two years ago: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-63399160
Finally, class, who can think of the headline for our story if we were a bit corny?
CalMac ferries don’t cost ‘ferry much’ to keep in service!!!!!
Excellent, Willie!
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
The Guardian is at it too this morning. Seems to be following a FOI request from the Tories in Scotland and is described as “eye watering”.
£100m divided by 10 yrs means £10m divided by 35 vessels. Comes in at about £285000 per vessel. Considering what I pay per annum to keep my much younger, much less complex, car which has a tiny fraction of the capacity and covering a tiny proportion of the mileage, this doesn’t seem unreasonable.
LikeLiked by 5 people
If it costs £100 million to maintain 8 ferries for 10 years, how much did it cost to maintain one Royal yacht, on average each year?
https://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-facts-details-royal-yacht-britannia-queen-floating-palace-2021-5
“Despite the Queen’s fondness for the Britannia, the Labour government decided to decommission it in 1997 due to its high operation cost of £11 million each year, Reuters reported. That’s equivalent to about $23 million today.”
LikeLike
It was all about crew costs
the royal yacht had 270 crew
roman abramovich’s yacht had 70 crew
abramovich’ yacht is more than twice the size. And i bet he doesnt pour his own cornflakes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The Courier have a story online.
‘Buses replace trains from Dundee to Aberdeen this Sunday’
‘ScotRail announced the line will be closed for essential engineering work.’
so you would think that ScotRail are closing the line, the truth however is that,
There are network rail closures between Dundee and Aberdeen on Sunday, January 5, 2025 due to engineering work:
More Thames estuary stories from Scotland’s MSM.
LikeLike
while your basic point is not necessarily wrong, 100m for 80 ferry years is 1.25 per ferry year not 0.125.
LikeLike
And they wonder why readership has plummeted!!
It seems like most Herald journalists are employed to write wrap arounds for online adverts.
Bring back the days of Phil Space.
LikeLike
£100m or £100,000,000 ÷ 8 ferries ÷ 10 years = £1.25m, or £1,250,000 per vessel per year on average
LikeLike
£100m or £100,000,000 ÷ 8 ferries ÷ 10 years = £1.25m, or £1,250,000 per vessel per year on average
LikeLike
£Billions lost on HS2.
LikeLike
35 ferries, not 8
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24833822.repair-bill-eight-calmac-ferries-hits-almost-100-million/
LikeLike