The Talking-up Scotland fund raiser primarily, finishing in 8 days, to enable the recruitment of some research assistance, in order to take pressure off me [74 in June and tiring] and hopefully to further improve the blog, has made a good start. To contribute, only if you can (!) go to: Talking-up Scotland - a Politics crowdfunding project in Ayr by Professor John Robertson

Professor John Robertson OBA, former Faculty Research Ethics Chair, UWS, Global Ferry Correspondent of the Year and Honest Man

Update – Jamie Whiteford – Still Indy – They cannot even get their lies right. The vessel that normally plies this route, MV Isle of Lewis, is the one getting the extra anti-rust treatment in Hall Russell at Aberdeen.

The Herald today has:

Longsuffering islanders have expressed concern as it emerged that another one of CalMac’s oldest vessels has had to be kept out of service due to ‘rust’. The Isle of Barra and Vatersay rely on a direct lifeline service to Oban on the mainland and recently been served by the 37-year-old MV Isle of Mull – that has had its capacity cut to 45 passengers.

It’s a direct lie.

From the popular ferry user site We Love Stornoway, today:

MV Isle of Mull is sailing today (Friday, February 21, 2025) but not to Castlebay [Barra] due to the continuing adverse weather. The ferry is operating an amended timetable between Lochboisdale and Oban instead. Sailings on Saturday will be subject to a review at 5 pm today.

https://welovestornoway.com/index.php/articles/37404-ferry-sailing-but-not-to-barra#google_vignette

On December 29th, 2024, BBC Scotland tried the same deception on the capacity cut:

Ferry operator CalMac has been forced to cut passengers numbers on its MV Isle of Mull vessel to just 45 after it failed a safety check. Problems were identified with the ship’s evacuation system during its annual overhaul. CalMac has confirmed passenger numbers must be temporarily limited to reflect the spaces available on its lifeboats.

BBC Scotland opened with the above before going on to milk the story for a further 7 paragraphs before this:

CalMac says passenger bookings on the Lochboisdale route very rarely exceed 45 passengers per sailing at this time of year. At the time the restrictions were brought in, there were no bookings exceeding the 45 passengers per sailing limit.

So, the headline story is ‘Nothing to report here?

So, 45 or less booked on the MV Isle of Mull over the winter months, even at New Year? How many can she take?

900!

FFS and she sails with 45 or less? Who’s paying for that? You and me. Are the islanders grateful? You bet they’re not.

Joe, above, is from Somerset and may be the Mull person I heard on Radio Scotland, a few years back, saying CalMac is the worst ferry service in the world.

Is the MV Isle of Mull the only largely empty ferry sailing steadily through the winter?

I have previously checked the Arran service for this very thing:

In a year, CalMac makes around 4 000 sailings (not inc cancellations) between Ardrossan and Brodick.¹

In 2022, they carried 692 518 passengers and 183 092 cars.²

So on average, each sailing took around 173 passengers and 45 cars.

The MV Caledonian Isles, operating the route in 2022, takes up to 1 000 passengers and 110 cars.³

So, accepting the ferry may well be full in high summer even with increased sailings, this suggests quite a lot of spare capacity in the system, massively subsidised for a population of only 5 000.

Sources:

1. https://www.calmac.co.uk/article/2607/Route-Performance–CalMac-Ferries
2. https://www.calmac.co.uk/article/9241/Carrying-Statistics-2022—text-version
3. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Caledonian_Isles

Are the Arran islanders grateful. Most probably are but enough, typically not born there, are ever ready to contact the media when the service fails to meet their southern sense of entitlement.

Is CalMac worst in the world? What do you think? Over the last few years, I’ve looked at them all.

Here’s a better candidate:

Washington State Ferries in the USA have just announced new prices for the popular 15 miles, 1 hour crossing of the sheltered Puget Sound, between Bremerton and Seattle – $54.35 or £43.30. https://mynorthwest.com/3959021/travel-alert-washington-ferry-prices-go-up-amid-waves-riders/

The popular 14.3 miles, 1 hour 20 minutes crossing of the, at times very stormy, Firth of Clyde, from Brodick, Arran to Ardrossan, is £30.20.

How is this possible?

In 2022/2023, the SNP Government ferry subsidy to keep prices down to affordable levels for hopefully grateful islanders, native or settler, was £173 MILLION! https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/24276739.calmac-gets-63-real-terms-public-subsidy-rise-despite-drop/#:~:text=Then%20the%20grant%20to%20CalMac,space%20of%20just%20one%20year.

There are many mainland villages in Scotland with far longer journey times from larger towns or city centres without comparable help. The ferry users group chairs should write to the Herald and BBC Scotland, tell them to zip it for fear of attracting public scrutiny of their subsidies, then zip it themselves. I know it’s hard if you’ve just retired from being Chief Executive of Arsechester Dairies, to a Scottish island, to stop talking, but do try.

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