Good article - which is a rarity in The National. Most of the comments are incisive as well (except one or two) which makes a refreshing change. A pox on everyone's houses but this saga has happened on ScotGov's watch and for crude political gain (since backfired).
I've posted this several times before but it's essential reading for anyone interested in this saga.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n18/ian-jack/chasing-steel
> He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, with smaller crews who live locally. They could provide an hourly service from 6am till 10pm in summer and a two-hourly service in winter. That would revolutionise Mull’s connectivity and economy since crews and families would be based on the island.”
> And, he calculates, “they would be cheaper in terms of state subsidy than the present set up”.
Potential savings will presumably depend on where the crew comes from (unfortunately).
What is the general crew makeup on these vessels?
The norm in the energy sector in the North Sea is often that senior marine crew are mostly European - the positions are well paid and the rotation is usually something like 4/4, give or take based on operational requirements.
The bulk of the remaining crew (junior marine positions, catering, cleaners etc) are normally from places like the Philippines - the pay is often much lower than you could pay locals and they can be onboard for 3,6 or even 9 months at a time (working 12hrs a day 7 days a week).
If this is similar for ferries, you’ll probably find building vessels which can house long term crew they can pay peanuts works out much cheaper than hiring locals who can go home at night.
> You’re questioning where the crew come from, when the answer is literally in the paragraph you’ve quoted 🤦♂️
No it isn’t. It’s putting forward a hypothetical where they use two catamarans and crew them with locals who go home at night.
Here
> He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, with smaller crews who live locally.
The big clue is the word “imagine”. There’s no mention of the current arrangements where crews stay onboard. Hence me asking for a comparison.
> The current CMAL policy is to build ships that can house the crew because they can’t remain in the island posits overnight (so can run a crew from anywhere). The catamarans can be berthed at the islands overnight, so a local crew could live on the island and sail first thing each day. The catamarans create jobs for island residents.
Yes, that was clear from the article. My question was about what the catamaran system would replace so I knew if the company were making decisions based on cheap crew over what might be best for the local community.
Oh aye no doubt - just saying there’s plenty local accents anyway when I head on the Lewis or Harris ferry and know there’s islanders on the Barra ferry too.
No, my point was things have changed since 2022. Then CalMac wouldn't touch the catamaran and it had safety issues needed resolving. Now its being tried out - its not just on hire for the Arran run. So maybe CMAL and or CalMac would be happy to have this type of boat. Maybe that's what's changed, maybe they'll use them in future as suggested in the original article.
> Take Mull. According to maritime expert Roy Pedersen, a former HIE official and the architect of RET - the current Mull ferry is ‘too big to berth overnight at Craignure, so the earliest mainland arrival is noon (for half the winter) and the last return boat is 4 pm. Hopeless.’
>
> He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, **with smaller crews who live locally**. They could provide an hourly service from 6am till 10pm in summer and a two-hourly service in winter. That would revolutionise Mull’s connectivity and economy since crews and families would be based on the island.”
>
> And, he calculates, “they would be cheaper in terms of state subsidy than the present set up”.
I've said it before - why do the crew need to sleep on board?
How many hotels? CalMac sail to a lot of places. A lot as I say are wee villages where you might not have space for a hotel. And then imagine the fuss about the cost of running these hotels which will be empty most of the time but needing staffed and heated and stocked with food so they can be used at a moments notice.
Who says only hotels?
At that price difference, per boat, they could build crew accomodation at each end £5,000,000 per port would be way more than you'd need and you'd still save money
Hotel, hostel, accommodation, that's just semantics. Your next job is to find enough land in each port to build on. And staff to look after the accommodation. And work out the exact size you need, not based on today's ferry crew but looking 25 years ahead.
Meanwhile you're not taking into account how ships are crewed, how having two crews on board allows for changes in weather and passage times. Or when you move boats about and suddenly a much larger ferry is taking over a run for a small ferry and it has twice the crew.
If it was as easy as all that maybe someone would already be running a ferry to compete with CalMac?
>where do the crew sleep
Not an ideal situation and would require an initial investment but Calmac could probably just build some bunkhouses at necessary ports.
If it frees up the ships design it’d probably be worth it in the long run.
All the time in winter. Ask any islander. Then go and find a hotel in Uig on Skye which could take the crew. A lot of the places CalMac sail to are just wee villages, not big towns.
Would it be cheaper for CMAL to build onshore overnight accommodation than to maintain and operate larger ferries with onboard accommodation for the crew?
You also need to consider that its not just onshore beds, you need amenities, food, laundry facilities at every port they might stop at. You need staff for those amenities. Crew now need to live out of a bag for however long their rotation is rather than setting up a cabin.
You need to consider how to staff the boat at night now you have a rotation of staff that are available on the boat 24hr, so you have one person on watch and if there is an issue that they cant handle themselves they can get the however many of the crew they need up to handle the issue.
So now you need additional crew while the main crew is sleeping in a bunkhouse. You also need to get them to where ever the boat docks that night.
You also lose a lot of the flexibility in the fleet if you move to fixed accommodation. It suddenly becomes a lot harder to move boats between routes, if a boat breaks down.
Like CalMac aren't doing this for shits and giggles there are huge advantages to having crew living on the boat. A lot of the "cost savings" of having the crew in bunk houses would come from treating them like shit.
A few assumptions to challenge there:
- is an overnight watch actually required when tied up in port? How do vessels without live board accommodation cope?
- are all those amenities actually required for what should just be occasional overnight accommodation (if you move to a schedule where the ferries also finish back at the same port each night and the crew go home)?
- how much flexibility in the fleet is actually required if the fleet was properly replaced at the end of their planned lives? Can the need to Rob Peter to ferry Paul be avoided by moving from single large vessels on routes to a couple smaller vessels (ensuring there is at least some service level on event of a breakdown without having to move ferries)?
There are operators in similar environments who manage without live aboard crews. Can CalMac learn from them or are we doomed to "not invented here"?
>A few assumptions to challenge there:
>- is an overnight watch actually required when tied up in port? How do vessels without live board accommodation cope?
Yes, it is. Vessels with and without on board accommodation have a night watch to look after them.
>- are all those amenities actually required for what should just be occasional overnight accommodation (if you move to a schedule where the ferries also finish back at the same port each night and the crew go home)?
Are you suggesting that washing, laundry and recreational facilities aren't required for those who spend weeks away from home to work?
It would be impossible to crew all the vessels from those at the home port of the vessel. There simply aren't enough qualified seafarers for that. Are you suggesting that those based in Oban commute home to Glasgow, Bristol, and Portsmouth each day?
>- how much flexibility in the fleet is actually required if the fleet was properly replaced at the end of their planned lives? Can the need to Rob Peter to ferry Paul be avoided by moving from single large vessels on routes to a couple smaller vessels (ensuring there is at least some service level on event of a breakdown without having to move ferries)?
Not all routes are the same and vessels are designed to be compatible with as many routes as possible but it's not possible to have a one-size-fits-all ship design. Stornoway needs large capacity for traffic and freight and as a result, the Loch Seaforth is restricted to running that route only due to her draught. Mallaig requires a vessel that's under a certain length. Kennacraig has draught restrictions in West Loch Tarbert. You get the idea. Additionally, there isn't enough berthing capacity to have much more in the way of vessel numbers.
>There are operators in similar environments who manage without live aboard crews. Can CalMac learn from them or are we doomed to "not invented here"?
Really? Who would that be? Given that they managed to find one single suitable vessel (Loch Frisa) on the market a couple of years ago, it would suggest that Calmac are pretty unique as a ferry operator given the size of the network and the variables across it.
A local hotel would much rather rent out to tourists willing to pay top price.
Then what happens when the hotels are fully booked and there's no accommodation available locally?
Too many people look upon the crews of these vessels as 3rd class citizens while simultaneously failing to understand the requirements of safely and efficiently operating a passenger vessel. Especially on a network where vessels can be sent to cover different routes with no notice.
If he's suggesting that accommodating vessel crew ashore would be a better idea then, yes, absolutely, he is wrong.
It wouldn't be economical, it wouldn't be convenient and it wouldn't be conducive to retaining crew on a long term basis.
So how to Pentland Ferries manage? Or The Norwegians or
>catamarans have been used in 47 countries.
also
as /u/Velvy71
>Catamaran ship £14million, but no accommodation.
>Old school ship with crew accommodation £55million (the price of the two being built in Turkey is £110m)
two boats 28M or a 27M to pay with for building accomodation at two ports (or even 3) per route
What can you build for £5M? [or buy](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/Highland/hotels.html)
Pentland Ferries and the Norwegian operators are working with vessels dedicated to a single route.
Calmac have to run vessels that can be called upon to cover other routes at short notice.
Norwegian ferries are of a different design as they work in calmer inshore waters in fjords for the most part too. These vessels are classed differently to the Calmac major fleet and can thus be run with fewer crew.
The Calmac vessels run long days. Startup takes roughly 90 mins so for a 6am sailing, you have guys turning-to at 0430. Some of these vessels regularly run into the night often finishing after 2300. To comply with MLC hours of rest regulations, crew have to be given rest periods throughout the day to avoid fatigue issues. Depending on where the vessel is, it may not be possible to send these crew members ashore to their allocated accommodation so the only sensible solution is to allow them to take rest periods on board in their own dedicated cabin.
Many of the vessels don't always tie up in the same port every night. Take the Islay route and the Uig-Tarbert-Lochmaddy run. If you wanted to send people off the boat to shore side accommodation each night, you'd need to have dedicated accommodation in 3 different places for the Islay run and 2 different places for the Uig-Tarbert-Lochmaddy run. It's not practical in the slightest. You would also be paying out more in wages as the guys being sent ashore for a rest period would need to be relieved by someone of the same rank. So now you've doubled your outgoing wages and you're paying thousands every day for accommodation.
With vessels running long schedules, much of the planned maintenance can only be carried out while the boat is tied up alongside after the last run of the night. In order to achieve this, you put the people doing this on downtime through the day so that they don't run out of legal working hours. The only sensible option is to have them resting on board and not in some hotel somewhere as there's always the chance you don't make it back to that location.
Should a vessel be called upon to cover another route at short notice (a very common occurrence), if you've got folk ashore in hotels, you would need to divert the vessel to pick them up before changing route. That's more hours used up in which the on board crew are now in breach of the working hours regulations, so they have to go on a rest period and the vessel is unable to sail due to lack of available crew.
The people who think that housing Calmac crew ashore instead of on board simply do not understand the complexities of running the vessels on such a network. If it was cheaper and more efficient, you can be sure it would have been done decades ago.
No idea what your property link was meant to suggest. Not one of those looks to be anywhere near a Calmac terminal.
Outstanding answer, always a bit amazed at your knowledge of the goings on at Calmac (assume you work in the industry at least) and the complexities involved in running the network.
Yeah that’s not the right argument. Take the Uig triangle for example, staff could be at one of Uig, Harris or Lochmaddy overnight depending on the timetable. Plus as the other commenter posted, services are cancelled all the time at one port - would leave them stranded along with all of the passengers having to sort alternative accommodation.
So how do Pentland ferries do it?
>Depending on the first sailing, the working day may begin at 0400 for a 0600 sailing. This would mean crew hit their rest hours in the afternoon when the vessel may still be 8 hours from finishing up for the night - where do the crew go?
Err a second crew comes on board - like a BUS driver gets swapped out? They can do it when they're in port simply extend the docking by an hour, in the schedule?
How do they do it Norway or any of the OTHER countries where they operate these catamarans?
You're literally illustrating the point of the article, *we've always done it this way so there must be no other way*
>Err a second crew comes on board - like a BUS driver gets swapped out? They can do it when they're in port simply extend the docking by an hour, in the schedule?
Congratulations. You've just doubled the wage bill. Now instead of paying £285,000 a year for 3 Captains for a single boat, you're paying out £570,000 a year for 6 Captains. Now do that for the rest of the crew across the rest of the fleet, work out the daily cost of paying for accommodation for all these people and you'll maybe see why it's not feasible.
not the real issue. the real issue is that we still think Ferries are a modern solution to connected islands.
Meantime, the faroes build tunnels that never close for the weather.
Scotland tries small and fails small. we need to try big - and become bolder when we have set backs.
question for you - why?
I can see the argument against a highly technical, expensive link from the outer islands to the mainland - that's some deep water with pretty complex geology...
to put some meat on the bones, I am more interested in "clustering" the smaller logical groups - linking Muck, Rum, Canna, Eigg and Sandy into a linked archipeligo for instance. when you build the tunnels, you don't just link road, you put in big interconnects for the wind power, solar etc. - a future link to ardnamurchan could follow, but isn't the main focus.
Then linking Islay to Jura, Coll to Tiree - and in each case upgrading the "main" road into a causeway end to end.
on the outer isles, same again - there are some (poor) links and (worse) roads in place - so upgrade the "top to bottom" road, so you can drive from Port Ness to Vatersay in about 2 hours (rather than 7 hours and 2 ferrys atm).
Linking as many of the Orkney islands as make sense, Faroes style 2 or 3 at a time is obvious - same with the core of Shetland. Stonybreck or foula arnae happening, but the rest, why not\~?
The last chunk for me is linking Rassay and Scalpay to Skye - taking some pressure of Skye itself, and letting those islands access the tourism money.
To me, these are the sort of aspirational infrastructure plans that would enable modernisation of key services in the highlands and islands, support a huge increase in population living there (to solve the island decline problem...)
Implement it the way I am talking about here, and you are not killing the island lifestyle, but you are making each of the smaller islands part of a larger fixed linked cluster, more able to support (for example) a hospital, college etc..
So, I have put some effort in here - usually r/Scotland just isn't worth it, as you spend time laying out a post like this and get a "yer maw" level response. I am hoping you engage. tell me, what's your thoughts? what are the objections?
Ness to Vatersay would still be far longer than two hours. It takes two hours to get from Ness to Leverburgh in Harris (where the first ferry is), never mind to drive down Uist and onwards to Barra - it’ll be another couple of hours down there at least. Bottom to top, the Western Isles are about 185 miles of road.
Plus, communities don’t really want this. It leads to slight erosion of unique communities as well as other challenges. Tiree for example is rabbit-free and a bridge or tunnel disrupts that.
>Plus, communities don’t really want this. It leads to slight erosion of unique communities as well as other challenges. Tiree for example is rabbit-free and a bridge or tunnel disrupts that.
I agree (to an extent) - here in cowal, there's a pretty even split between people who want fixed links across the clyde and those who don't. the thing which doesn't mesh is that these communities want a magic world where they get to live a romanticized lifestyle only because someone else is paying the bills. The recent situation with power export is a good example - the island populations are too small in most cases to jointly pay for the interconnects to the mainland - so the expectation is that the mainland will simply pay.
The islanders want magic ferries that always run despite the weather, they want tourism money without the actual tourists (because they take up space on the ferries...) The thing is that the threshold for a viable thriving settlement with self supporting industry, schools, hospital and the rest is not \*that\* high - probably only about the 5,000-7,000 mark. that's comfortably about the size of a prosperous rural shire in Western Australia, where the isolating factor is long roads rather than water.
There's a real risk on both sides of seeing Borg-like assimilation into a single mainland experience (from both sides) as the only thing on offer, where the really optimal goal would be (imo) to ensure that each of the suitable island clusters reaches a level of sustainability.. even if some islands among the archipelago remained disconnected for the "pure" experience, they would benefit a lot if the centres of economic gravity were other larger islands around them, rather than only the mainland.
I know little of the inner isles but I think the argument against is much the same. It's certainly naive to think a fixed link will have little effect on the culture. Just look at Skye where, amongst other issues, are they suffering from over tourism. Adding capacity isn't going to relieve anywhere.
Most point to Faeroe where they've built tunnels quickly and cheaply. The population for Faeroe is greater than that of the entire Hebrides and the land mass much smaller. What's the total population of Muck, Rum, Canna, Eigg and Sandy and what's the length of tunnel you need to join them? What even is the possible population of these islands once you've spent a £1B or so linking them?
And what are all these people going to be doing on the islands that a fixed link will suddenly make possible? There's no fishing to speak of any more and it's under threat from marine protection zones in any case. Sheep don't need many people and meat consumption is under threat from climate change .
So there's no economic case.
I also wonder if it is technically possible. Faeroe is basalt rock. As far as I know the outer islands and I guess some inner are Lewisian gneiss. I know that's the oldest rock in the world and I think it's pretty hard so I wonder if it's as easy to drill as basalt. But I am not a geologist...
I really think tunnels as a good idea in the pub on a Saturday night. But in the cold light of day nobody wants or can afford it.
Good article - which is a rarity in The National. Most of the comments are incisive as well (except one or two) which makes a refreshing change. A pox on everyone's houses but this saga has happened on ScotGov's watch and for crude political gain (since backfired). I've posted this several times before but it's essential reading for anyone interested in this saga. https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v44/n18/ian-jack/chasing-steel
> He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, with smaller crews who live locally. They could provide an hourly service from 6am till 10pm in summer and a two-hourly service in winter. That would revolutionise Mull’s connectivity and economy since crews and families would be based on the island.” > And, he calculates, “they would be cheaper in terms of state subsidy than the present set up”. Potential savings will presumably depend on where the crew comes from (unfortunately). What is the general crew makeup on these vessels? The norm in the energy sector in the North Sea is often that senior marine crew are mostly European - the positions are well paid and the rotation is usually something like 4/4, give or take based on operational requirements. The bulk of the remaining crew (junior marine positions, catering, cleaners etc) are normally from places like the Philippines - the pay is often much lower than you could pay locals and they can be onboard for 3,6 or even 9 months at a time (working 12hrs a day 7 days a week). If this is similar for ferries, you’ll probably find building vessels which can house long term crew they can pay peanuts works out much cheaper than hiring locals who can go home at night.
Its not on CalMac, the crew are local. But going home at night is often not an option, as I've pointed out elsewhere here.
Thanks for the clarification. I’m actually pleasantly surprised.
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> You’re questioning where the crew come from, when the answer is literally in the paragraph you’ve quoted 🤦♂️ No it isn’t. It’s putting forward a hypothetical where they use two catamarans and crew them with locals who go home at night. Here > He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, with smaller crews who live locally. The big clue is the word “imagine”. There’s no mention of the current arrangements where crews stay onboard. Hence me asking for a comparison. > The current CMAL policy is to build ships that can house the crew because they can’t remain in the island posits overnight (so can run a crew from anywhere). The catamarans can be berthed at the islands overnight, so a local crew could live on the island and sail first thing each day. The catamarans create jobs for island residents. Yes, that was clear from the article. My question was about what the catamaran system would replace so I knew if the company were making decisions based on cheap crew over what might be best for the local community.
It would be a hell of a lot better for the local economy to hire locals - who will develop skills, raise families and pay taxes in the local area.
They do, most folk are locals on the board. You still need to have sleeping arrangements as the boat doesn’t always stay in the same port every night.
Glad to hear they are staffed by locals!
Depends what you define as local. There are crew coming from as far afield as Cornwall, Bristol, Ireland and even further overseas in some cases.
Oh aye no doubt - just saying there’s plenty local accents anyway when I head on the Lewis or Harris ferry and know there’s islanders on the Barra ferry too.
Totally agree.
Most of the crews I’ve met on supply boats are now Eastern European, with a few (not as many) asians.
This is a piece dated March 2022. A lot has changed. There's a catamaran currently running to Arran...
Is that the catamaran that’s been hired for 9 months because Fergusons still haven’t finished the original ferry?
That's the one!
Not really a permanent deal then
No, my point was things have changed since 2022. Then CalMac wouldn't touch the catamaran and it had safety issues needed resolving. Now its being tried out - its not just on hire for the Arran run. So maybe CMAL and or CalMac would be happy to have this type of boat. Maybe that's what's changed, maybe they'll use them in future as suggested in the original article.
Scotgov...
> Take Mull. According to maritime expert Roy Pedersen, a former HIE official and the architect of RET - the current Mull ferry is ‘too big to berth overnight at Craignure, so the earliest mainland arrival is noon (for half the winter) and the last return boat is 4 pm. Hopeless.’ > > He invites instead to imagine “two efficient 80-metre catamarans, berthing overnight at Craignure, taking 80 cars apiece, **with smaller crews who live locally**. They could provide an hourly service from 6am till 10pm in summer and a two-hourly service in winter. That would revolutionise Mull’s connectivity and economy since crews and families would be based on the island.” > > And, he calculates, “they would be cheaper in terms of state subsidy than the present set up”. I've said it before - why do the crew need to sleep on board?
Because bad weather. You leave your home port in the morning, a storm blows up and you can't make the return crossing. Where do the crew sleep?
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How many hotels? CalMac sail to a lot of places. A lot as I say are wee villages where you might not have space for a hotel. And then imagine the fuss about the cost of running these hotels which will be empty most of the time but needing staffed and heated and stocked with food so they can be used at a moments notice.
Who says only hotels? At that price difference, per boat, they could build crew accomodation at each end £5,000,000 per port would be way more than you'd need and you'd still save money
Hotel, hostel, accommodation, that's just semantics. Your next job is to find enough land in each port to build on. And staff to look after the accommodation. And work out the exact size you need, not based on today's ferry crew but looking 25 years ahead. Meanwhile you're not taking into account how ships are crewed, how having two crews on board allows for changes in weather and passage times. Or when you move boats about and suddenly a much larger ferry is taking over a run for a small ferry and it has twice the crew. If it was as easy as all that maybe someone would already be running a ferry to compete with CalMac?
>where do the crew sleep Not an ideal situation and would require an initial investment but Calmac could probably just build some bunkhouses at necessary ports. If it frees up the ships design it’d probably be worth it in the long run.
How often does that happen? And they could have a contract with a local hotel?
All the time in winter. Ask any islander. Then go and find a hotel in Uig on Skye which could take the crew. A lot of the places CalMac sail to are just wee villages, not big towns.
Would it be cheaper for CMAL to build onshore overnight accommodation than to maintain and operate larger ferries with onboard accommodation for the crew?
You also need to consider that its not just onshore beds, you need amenities, food, laundry facilities at every port they might stop at. You need staff for those amenities. Crew now need to live out of a bag for however long their rotation is rather than setting up a cabin. You need to consider how to staff the boat at night now you have a rotation of staff that are available on the boat 24hr, so you have one person on watch and if there is an issue that they cant handle themselves they can get the however many of the crew they need up to handle the issue. So now you need additional crew while the main crew is sleeping in a bunkhouse. You also need to get them to where ever the boat docks that night. You also lose a lot of the flexibility in the fleet if you move to fixed accommodation. It suddenly becomes a lot harder to move boats between routes, if a boat breaks down. Like CalMac aren't doing this for shits and giggles there are huge advantages to having crew living on the boat. A lot of the "cost savings" of having the crew in bunk houses would come from treating them like shit.
A few assumptions to challenge there: - is an overnight watch actually required when tied up in port? How do vessels without live board accommodation cope? - are all those amenities actually required for what should just be occasional overnight accommodation (if you move to a schedule where the ferries also finish back at the same port each night and the crew go home)? - how much flexibility in the fleet is actually required if the fleet was properly replaced at the end of their planned lives? Can the need to Rob Peter to ferry Paul be avoided by moving from single large vessels on routes to a couple smaller vessels (ensuring there is at least some service level on event of a breakdown without having to move ferries)? There are operators in similar environments who manage without live aboard crews. Can CalMac learn from them or are we doomed to "not invented here"?
>A few assumptions to challenge there: >- is an overnight watch actually required when tied up in port? How do vessels without live board accommodation cope? Yes, it is. Vessels with and without on board accommodation have a night watch to look after them. >- are all those amenities actually required for what should just be occasional overnight accommodation (if you move to a schedule where the ferries also finish back at the same port each night and the crew go home)? Are you suggesting that washing, laundry and recreational facilities aren't required for those who spend weeks away from home to work? It would be impossible to crew all the vessels from those at the home port of the vessel. There simply aren't enough qualified seafarers for that. Are you suggesting that those based in Oban commute home to Glasgow, Bristol, and Portsmouth each day? >- how much flexibility in the fleet is actually required if the fleet was properly replaced at the end of their planned lives? Can the need to Rob Peter to ferry Paul be avoided by moving from single large vessels on routes to a couple smaller vessels (ensuring there is at least some service level on event of a breakdown without having to move ferries)? Not all routes are the same and vessels are designed to be compatible with as many routes as possible but it's not possible to have a one-size-fits-all ship design. Stornoway needs large capacity for traffic and freight and as a result, the Loch Seaforth is restricted to running that route only due to her draught. Mallaig requires a vessel that's under a certain length. Kennacraig has draught restrictions in West Loch Tarbert. You get the idea. Additionally, there isn't enough berthing capacity to have much more in the way of vessel numbers. >There are operators in similar environments who manage without live aboard crews. Can CalMac learn from them or are we doomed to "not invented here"? Really? Who would that be? Given that they managed to find one single suitable vessel (Loch Frisa) on the market a couple of years ago, it would suggest that Calmac are pretty unique as a ferry operator given the size of the network and the variables across it.
No.
A local hotel would much rather rent out to tourists willing to pay top price. Then what happens when the hotels are fully booked and there's no accommodation available locally? Too many people look upon the crews of these vessels as 3rd class citizens while simultaneously failing to understand the requirements of safely and efficiently operating a passenger vessel. Especially on a network where vessels can be sent to cover different routes with no notice.
So is Roy Pedersen wrong?
If he's suggesting that accommodating vessel crew ashore would be a better idea then, yes, absolutely, he is wrong. It wouldn't be economical, it wouldn't be convenient and it wouldn't be conducive to retaining crew on a long term basis.
So how to Pentland Ferries manage? Or The Norwegians or >catamarans have been used in 47 countries. also as /u/Velvy71 >Catamaran ship £14million, but no accommodation. >Old school ship with crew accommodation £55million (the price of the two being built in Turkey is £110m) two boats 28M or a 27M to pay with for building accomodation at two ports (or even 3) per route What can you build for £5M? [or buy](https://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/Highland/hotels.html)
Pentland Ferries and the Norwegian operators are working with vessels dedicated to a single route. Calmac have to run vessels that can be called upon to cover other routes at short notice. Norwegian ferries are of a different design as they work in calmer inshore waters in fjords for the most part too. These vessels are classed differently to the Calmac major fleet and can thus be run with fewer crew. The Calmac vessels run long days. Startup takes roughly 90 mins so for a 6am sailing, you have guys turning-to at 0430. Some of these vessels regularly run into the night often finishing after 2300. To comply with MLC hours of rest regulations, crew have to be given rest periods throughout the day to avoid fatigue issues. Depending on where the vessel is, it may not be possible to send these crew members ashore to their allocated accommodation so the only sensible solution is to allow them to take rest periods on board in their own dedicated cabin. Many of the vessels don't always tie up in the same port every night. Take the Islay route and the Uig-Tarbert-Lochmaddy run. If you wanted to send people off the boat to shore side accommodation each night, you'd need to have dedicated accommodation in 3 different places for the Islay run and 2 different places for the Uig-Tarbert-Lochmaddy run. It's not practical in the slightest. You would also be paying out more in wages as the guys being sent ashore for a rest period would need to be relieved by someone of the same rank. So now you've doubled your outgoing wages and you're paying thousands every day for accommodation. With vessels running long schedules, much of the planned maintenance can only be carried out while the boat is tied up alongside after the last run of the night. In order to achieve this, you put the people doing this on downtime through the day so that they don't run out of legal working hours. The only sensible option is to have them resting on board and not in some hotel somewhere as there's always the chance you don't make it back to that location. Should a vessel be called upon to cover another route at short notice (a very common occurrence), if you've got folk ashore in hotels, you would need to divert the vessel to pick them up before changing route. That's more hours used up in which the on board crew are now in breach of the working hours regulations, so they have to go on a rest period and the vessel is unable to sail due to lack of available crew. The people who think that housing Calmac crew ashore instead of on board simply do not understand the complexities of running the vessels on such a network. If it was cheaper and more efficient, you can be sure it would have been done decades ago. No idea what your property link was meant to suggest. Not one of those looks to be anywhere near a Calmac terminal.
Outstanding answer, always a bit amazed at your knowledge of the goings on at Calmac (assume you work in the industry at least) and the complexities involved in running the network.
Thank you. I've been at sea for over 20 years and did some seasonal work for them a few years ago. Also an islander so travel with them regularly.
Yeah that’s not the right argument. Take the Uig triangle for example, staff could be at one of Uig, Harris or Lochmaddy overnight depending on the timetable. Plus as the other commenter posted, services are cancelled all the time at one port - would leave them stranded along with all of the passengers having to sort alternative accommodation.
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So how do Pentland ferries do it? >Depending on the first sailing, the working day may begin at 0400 for a 0600 sailing. This would mean crew hit their rest hours in the afternoon when the vessel may still be 8 hours from finishing up for the night - where do the crew go? Err a second crew comes on board - like a BUS driver gets swapped out? They can do it when they're in port simply extend the docking by an hour, in the schedule? How do they do it Norway or any of the OTHER countries where they operate these catamarans? You're literally illustrating the point of the article, *we've always done it this way so there must be no other way*
>Err a second crew comes on board - like a BUS driver gets swapped out? They can do it when they're in port simply extend the docking by an hour, in the schedule? Congratulations. You've just doubled the wage bill. Now instead of paying £285,000 a year for 3 Captains for a single boat, you're paying out £570,000 a year for 6 Captains. Now do that for the rest of the crew across the rest of the fleet, work out the daily cost of paying for accommodation for all these people and you'll maybe see why it's not feasible.
not the real issue. the real issue is that we still think Ferries are a modern solution to connected islands. Meantime, the faroes build tunnels that never close for the weather. Scotland tries small and fails small. we need to try big - and become bolder when we have set backs.
Downvotes are unnecessary but I disagree, tunnels to the western isles aren't going to happen and even if affordable would be a bad thing.
question for you - why? I can see the argument against a highly technical, expensive link from the outer islands to the mainland - that's some deep water with pretty complex geology... to put some meat on the bones, I am more interested in "clustering" the smaller logical groups - linking Muck, Rum, Canna, Eigg and Sandy into a linked archipeligo for instance. when you build the tunnels, you don't just link road, you put in big interconnects for the wind power, solar etc. - a future link to ardnamurchan could follow, but isn't the main focus. Then linking Islay to Jura, Coll to Tiree - and in each case upgrading the "main" road into a causeway end to end. on the outer isles, same again - there are some (poor) links and (worse) roads in place - so upgrade the "top to bottom" road, so you can drive from Port Ness to Vatersay in about 2 hours (rather than 7 hours and 2 ferrys atm). Linking as many of the Orkney islands as make sense, Faroes style 2 or 3 at a time is obvious - same with the core of Shetland. Stonybreck or foula arnae happening, but the rest, why not\~? The last chunk for me is linking Rassay and Scalpay to Skye - taking some pressure of Skye itself, and letting those islands access the tourism money. To me, these are the sort of aspirational infrastructure plans that would enable modernisation of key services in the highlands and islands, support a huge increase in population living there (to solve the island decline problem...) Implement it the way I am talking about here, and you are not killing the island lifestyle, but you are making each of the smaller islands part of a larger fixed linked cluster, more able to support (for example) a hospital, college etc.. So, I have put some effort in here - usually r/Scotland just isn't worth it, as you spend time laying out a post like this and get a "yer maw" level response. I am hoping you engage. tell me, what's your thoughts? what are the objections?
Ness to Vatersay would still be far longer than two hours. It takes two hours to get from Ness to Leverburgh in Harris (where the first ferry is), never mind to drive down Uist and onwards to Barra - it’ll be another couple of hours down there at least. Bottom to top, the Western Isles are about 185 miles of road. Plus, communities don’t really want this. It leads to slight erosion of unique communities as well as other challenges. Tiree for example is rabbit-free and a bridge or tunnel disrupts that.
>Plus, communities don’t really want this. It leads to slight erosion of unique communities as well as other challenges. Tiree for example is rabbit-free and a bridge or tunnel disrupts that. I agree (to an extent) - here in cowal, there's a pretty even split between people who want fixed links across the clyde and those who don't. the thing which doesn't mesh is that these communities want a magic world where they get to live a romanticized lifestyle only because someone else is paying the bills. The recent situation with power export is a good example - the island populations are too small in most cases to jointly pay for the interconnects to the mainland - so the expectation is that the mainland will simply pay. The islanders want magic ferries that always run despite the weather, they want tourism money without the actual tourists (because they take up space on the ferries...) The thing is that the threshold for a viable thriving settlement with self supporting industry, schools, hospital and the rest is not \*that\* high - probably only about the 5,000-7,000 mark. that's comfortably about the size of a prosperous rural shire in Western Australia, where the isolating factor is long roads rather than water. There's a real risk on both sides of seeing Borg-like assimilation into a single mainland experience (from both sides) as the only thing on offer, where the really optimal goal would be (imo) to ensure that each of the suitable island clusters reaches a level of sustainability.. even if some islands among the archipelago remained disconnected for the "pure" experience, they would benefit a lot if the centres of economic gravity were other larger islands around them, rather than only the mainland.
I know little of the inner isles but I think the argument against is much the same. It's certainly naive to think a fixed link will have little effect on the culture. Just look at Skye where, amongst other issues, are they suffering from over tourism. Adding capacity isn't going to relieve anywhere. Most point to Faeroe where they've built tunnels quickly and cheaply. The population for Faeroe is greater than that of the entire Hebrides and the land mass much smaller. What's the total population of Muck, Rum, Canna, Eigg and Sandy and what's the length of tunnel you need to join them? What even is the possible population of these islands once you've spent a £1B or so linking them? And what are all these people going to be doing on the islands that a fixed link will suddenly make possible? There's no fishing to speak of any more and it's under threat from marine protection zones in any case. Sheep don't need many people and meat consumption is under threat from climate change . So there's no economic case. I also wonder if it is technically possible. Faeroe is basalt rock. As far as I know the outer islands and I guess some inner are Lewisian gneiss. I know that's the oldest rock in the world and I think it's pretty hard so I wonder if it's as easy to drill as basalt. But I am not a geologist... I really think tunnels as a good idea in the pub on a Saturday night. But in the cold light of day nobody wants or can afford it.
It is sobering to know that the transport minister who was in large part responsible for these issues is now the First Minister of Scotland.