The Ardrossan and Saltcoats Herald which reports locally on the Arran ferries has a strange wee piece based on a freedom of information request by an unnamed source, headed and followed with:

Hundreds of CalMac Ardrossan-Arran ferry cancellations since 2020 – NEW figures released by the Scottish Government show the Ardrossan to Brodick ferry service was cancelled more than 800 times over the last five years due to mechanical faults.

https://www.ardrossanherald.com/news/26008574.hundreds-calmac-ardrossan-arran-ferry-cancellations-since-2020/?ref=rss&IYA-reg=354ea167-01f6-4a9e-89a8-7c62593b2364&utm_source=inyourarea.co.uk&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=dnl&utm_keyword=dailynewsletter&utm_content=dnl_discover_news_article_referral_small_1

but then, artlessly, they tell us, since the pandemic dip in sailings, there have been:

• October 2022 to September 2023: 570 cancellations
• October 2023 to September 2024: 106 cancellations
• October 2024 to September 2025: 85 cancellations

So, first, cancelled sailings due to mechanical problems have plummeted in the last three years. There’s something you never hear. They were lower during the pandemic for obvious reasons.

Second, they go on to tell us this:

A CalMac spokeswoman said the cancelled journeys across Scotland were only a small portion of its overall service. She said: “These figures show that only a tiny percentage – around two per cent – of the 802,413 sailings we operated since October 2020 were cancelled for technical reasons. In fact, the main reason for cancellations was due to poor weather conditions – 27,385 (3.5%) since that date.