A significant chunk of the CalMac ferry fleet is currently out of action, with the repair yard so full of CalMac vessels that ferries are berthed elsewhere in Scotland, waiting for space to open up.

There are presently ten vessels over 80 metres in length in the CalMac fleet.

Those are the MV Isle of Arran, MV Hebridean Isles, MV Isle of Mull, MV Lord of the Isles, MV Caledonian Isles, MV Isle of Lewis, MV Clansman, MV Hebrides, MV Finlaggan, and MV Loch Seaforth. These vessels usually operate on longer crossings, with high passenger numbers.

However, of those ten, MV Isle of Lewis, MV Clansman, MV Caledonian Isles and the MV Hebridean Isles are currently out of action due to technical issues.

When I visited the James Watt Dock in Greenock where the ships are repaired today, CalMac vessels MV Isle of Lewis, MV Caledonian Isles and MV Loch Fyne were at the dock undergoing repair work. In addition, the MV Clansman is currently at the King George V dock in Glasgow, waiting for space at the James Watt dock in Greenock.

Speaking to me on condition of anonymity, I was told by someone in the industry:

“We have a situation where almost half of the larger vessels in the fleet are out of service, it’s concerning to say the least. It is unfortunate that one of our oldest vessels, the 38-year-old MV Hebridean Isles, had to be removed from service due to persistent issues. This has resulted in the suspension of a vital freight service to the island of Arran, which heavily relies on these services for essential supplies. The fleet is knackered, to be honest.”

In recent weeks, technical issues have impacted the remainder of the larger vessels in the fleet to varying degrees.

In light of CalMac’s ageing ferry fleet, approximately one-third of which now exceeds 30 years of service, the company’s maintenance budget has increased significantly. The delay in the delivery of new CalMac ferries has further compounded the pressure on the operator, as the affected island communities express their dissatisfaction with the resulting disruptions to their services. Despite these challenges, Chief Executive Officer Robbie Drummond acknowledges that the company has had to operate its fleet beyond its intended life expectancy.

CalMac’s ageing ferry fleet is being driven so hard by increased sailings that faults are increasingly common, many of these issues will be resolved as newer ships enter the fleet and, eventually, when the vessels being built at Port Glasgow come into service.

George Allison
George Allison
George has a degree in Cyber Security from Glasgow Caledonian University and has a keen interest in naval and cyber security matters and has appeared on national radio and television to discuss current events. George is on Twitter at @geoallison
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56 COMMENTS

  1. National shipbuilding strategy is working well then. I think the Scots might need to get some new ferries built south of the order. God forbid. In that despicable country called England.
    In all seriousness though if there is a governmental contract for ferries then surely that must come in under the national shipbuilding strategy and not be allowed to be built abroad.

      • I suppose Turkey is south of the border.

        In the meantime, are there no other yards with capacity to repair?

        Likely not and a sad reflection on this once great ship building nation

        • Repair isn’t the problem, it is the fact the hulls have intentionally been allowed to go well past their useful life and short of a major, lengthy and expensive refit . You are just chasing problems, fix one problem and another crops op. It is repair whack a mole,

        • It is yet another argument for spreading the workload and opening some other yards. Tyneside is screaming out for investment and a return to serious modern ship building. The last big vessels were HMAS Choules/LARGS BAY and RFA LYME BAY.

      • I’m curious what the holdup is in fixing these.

        There appears to be a circle of death here.

        Knackered ferries that are being over worked. So the breakdowns become more frequent and more major. So there are less ferries being worked even harder.

        But there again those two lovely ships in Fergusons, should they ever make it to the seas, will solve all of the problems. Oh, yes 🙂

        Crazy. I’m not sure why CalMac hasn’t tried to lease some of the spare ferries smaller older from P&O’s (or the other ferry companies) reserve fleet. I know they disposed of some but they are also some smaller lorry only ferries that run all night for freight. I’ve been put on one of those, with a really big trailer, and they are not plush but they do the job.

          • A Caledonian MacBrayne owned service, or am I missing something. I think it is a situation when real government owned service would do a better job. It’s obvious without going through and financial ledgers that the routes are not financially lucrative. If the devolved government want those islands populated, which they do. They should shoulder the costs of a reliable ferry service.
            Remember how I said in the perfect Great Britain the role of the military would be greatly expanded. Crewing and maintaining some dual use ferry vessels, would be an excellent last posting or resting duty for personnel. Also good for public relations.

        • You have to question a company that’s spent years boxing itself into a corner…

          It’s facing a perfect storm, just as well most of its ferries are safely in Harbour 😂

          • The company don’t own the ships, the Scottish government do though their quango C mal. The company have no control over the age of the fleet or ordering of new ships.

        • It is lack of investment by Caledonian MacBrayne.
          These important infrastructure transport links are suffering from private sector neglect. It goes against my very being but the ferry routes should be nationalised and run by the state. A job for the Scottish parliament me thinks. A better use of tax payers money than pronoun policing and the other woke wastes of time.

    • The western isle are reaping the rewards for their dogmatic and blinkered support of Nationalism, their vote is very much taken for granted. If a n other party states in their manifesto they will sort out the ferrie fiasco they may break the SNP western isles strangle hold,

    • The site describes itself as defence, and impartial. Truth is it is more a vehicle for George to air grievances time after time. Agree the situation with the ferries is a disgrace and a rolling program of replacement should have been in place long ago. But hee haw to do with defense no matter how they will try to spin why this is numerous similar articles are posted on here.

      • Hi Fedex, given that one of my recent articles was dismissing the scaremongering over the new ferries and highlighting that Ferguson Marine is doing well and is on track for more work, I think this comment is unfair. I have an interest in maritime news, that’s all.

      • In a war situation ships can be taken up from trade so there serviceability is linked to defence.
        Anyway no one forces u to be here and read and then comment.
        Personally I found it very interesting and how this impacts peoples lives.
        It’s better than no articles.
        Some people are never happy. Why don’t u start ur own website and post what u enjoy reading.

      • I mean, this site is pretty much his blog. So you can a) read these posts b) not read these posts c) not visit this site.

        It’s not George’s or anyone on the staff’s fault that what is essentially a hobby blog is also one of the best sources of UK military news.

        And it’s all provided to you for free.

      • I would say commercial ship building and repair is linked to defence. Yards need economies of scale to reduce cost of military ships therefore the Scottish government not placing orders in time then placing them overseas is of a concern to those if us who are interested in defence.

  3. The long-term repercussions of SNP incompetence, which bankrupted Fergusons and left CalMac running ferries long past their planned retirement date.

    Give us an insight into how well an independent Scottish Navy would fare…

    • I’m sort of hoping with sturgeon going and labour looking like they could win an election we may see a surge in labour votes in Scotland at the next election Blunting the SNP, I think think if Labour do win for at least two terms we many just see the SNP vote fall dramatically. I think the only way to really set Scotland back on a track to staying in the Union is a successful Labour government. Be you a Tory or Labour voter I think most people accept the Tory party and Scotland are not mixing well at present.

      • Problem for Labour is they were all in on the policy that finished Sturgeon. I personally doubt the scandal will seriously dent the SNP’s support 90% of SNP voters see every vote as a referendum on independence not a judgment on the competence or lack of in Govt.

      • Issue you have is that Labour Ignored the Voters last time, on Brexit, and maybe Brexit wasnt such a good Idea, yet Cameron ignored the Voters and look what happened. they are all as bad as each other and no clear winner. I Vote different in a General Election to a Local election. But Labour just spend there Time Moaning and don’t have a answer on how to fix. so would need to hear so positive from Labour and not just Lip service to get easy votes.

      • Going back to the early 90’s I read something that resonated with me, it was along the lines of “Scotland doesn’t need independence, it needs a Labour government”. True then and true now. Its frightening just how much of a grasp on the nation the Indy issue has become when we have years of Tory rule due to Labour incompetence.

        I say that as seeing the ‘natural balance’ being both parties having more or less regular terms in government to remove the worst excesses of the other party.

        For now I’ve broken out the popcorn and sitting back to watch the SNP ripping itself apart. Pleasing.

        • Agree Andy, our political system works best when we have balanced parties that are a continuum on a consensus..it breaks down when we get strong swings in the parties and one or both become unelectable by a major view…I think in the last election most people had to hold their noise a bit whatever party they voted for….it was more..which idiot was less dangerous.

          I really hope Labour can get that balance back especially in Scotland. The conservatives also actually need to work on being less toxic in Scotland and wales….for the good of the country because at present they have done a lot of damage to the union and are perceived by many as an English nationalist party,, not a unionist party.

          agree pleasing to see a party that’s entire aim is to destroy our nation go into a. Bit of a spin.

      • Ferries are most assuredly boats.👍

        strangely even if a ferry is larger that a cruise ship the ferry is still a boat and the cruise ship still a ship….size as they say does not always matter.

      • What is even more fun is that something can be a ship then a boat then a ship again……so your original ( pree16c) barque was a sailing ship…then after the 16c it changed to describe a small sailing or rowing boat ( mainly fishing vessels)..finally in around the 19c barques changed again and became large three masted deep sea sailing ships…barque shares the same roots as the word barge ( from the Celtic Barc) and a barge is always a boat….it’s also the root of the word Barky which was slag term that was used by mariners for their ship.

  6. The English government has closed down just about all the best industry’s in Scotland yet they keep them all running in England.England would be lost if Scotland opened up a big shipping industry

  7. Down here in Uruguay they announced the purchase of Hydrogen powered car ferries from New Zealand, designed tested and being built. This is a 3 hr sea crossing,3 times a day. It would seem protecting a failed industry is not worth the salt. How many times must politicians try, think of the customer every time.

    • CML has designed a hydrogen ferry for Orkney…just awaiting investment partners. Norway have also built their own. This a very new industry and they still have not written all the safety regulations as its ally very experimental, but this is the future and any nation with a ship building industry that shoots its investment to another nation is being a bit short sighted. The other issue with this is that to operate hydrogen ferries you must have access to hydrogen production ( which is not common) as well as hydrogen infrastructure, which is actually very expensive to set up and would need significant national investment. You cannot just buy an off the shelf hydrogen ferry and run it or just let your industrial capacity fail because another nation is investing in RD….you should be doing the say,

      • Are you explaining that Ferguson’s is an R&D project? My reply was in response to a situation where 1/2 the fleet is incapacitated, travellers want a service nothing else. We don’t produce electric cars either, we buy them from various foreign suppliers.

  8. Thing is Uk shipyards will never be able to be competitive in a global market places like Turkey ,Romania etc don’t have the same H/S regs and wages are nowhere near where a uk worker will accept, we can build military vessels as we don’t have to tendar for them. If we want to get back to building commercial ships the government needs to recognise the social cohesion that large industries provide, the unions also have a large part to play to ensure maximum productivity.

    • Agree and we should be investing and developing our industries using government funded and or encouraged RD activity to make sure our industries are cutting edge and can compete….it was actually a toxic mix of lack of investment in the early 20c and then poorly thought our union friction in the 70s that killed the British shipping industries….but the root cause was no investment when the rest of the ship building world was investing in procuctivity…ship building should have been one of those high tec high skill industries we could have kept…( places like India with its wage slave economy does not do effective ship building).

  9. I wonder who is most to blame for this: CalMac or the SNP.
    Be interesting to see the wriggling out of responsibility by those with skin in the game.

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