Wednesday, 13 February 2013
Wednesday 13 February
A very wild day to start with, and the gale did not subside until the second half of the afternoon. Winds touched force 9 in the southern isles, leading to extensive cancellations and delays on the ferry network. Nonetheless, people served on the Uig / Tarbert / Lochmaddy triangular route felt it necessary to moan about the cancellations suffered by replacement ferry MV Finlaggan. Their regular boat, the MV Hebrides, has been on the Stornoway to Ullapool route, and the Uisteachs are demanding their boat back as the Finlaggan is allegedly unfit for purpose. Well, I'm sure that the Finlaggan would not be sailing here if she was not licensed. Breakdowns can happen at any time, and to any boat - the Hebrides did not sail this morning due to a breakdown. I think people would come down like a ton of bricks on Calmac if anything happened because a vessel went out in unsuitable conditions. It has been a very wild few weeks, and disruptions to the ferry service are to be expected. It is the Hebrides, not the Med.
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I think the comments on Finlaggan have been slightly taken out of context - from what I've read, the suggestion is that the vessel is not suitable for "that route" specifically, with the route being the purpose in question, as opposed to not fit for purpose generally. Looking at the cancellations, and hearing from friends up there, the level of cancellations on the Triangle this winter have been massively higher than in the past, and seemingly this is not true across the network as a whole! At the end of the day, Fin was never intended to be used for crossing the sorts of waters that are being asked of her now, while Heb was.
ReplyDeleteAs I said in the post, if Finlaggan was not deemed to be suitable, she would not be licensed to operate in these waters.
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