CalMac’s hopes of hiring a spacious ship to cover a critical period in its winter timetable have been dashed.
MV Ben-My-Chree - her name means ‘Woman of my Heart’ in Manx Gaelic - as been sent
back home to the Isle of Man after berthing trials failed to work out.
CalMac is putting on a brave face insisting there’s “no immediate negative” impact on the network. Its current deployment plan, which is in place until the middle of the month “remains unchanged.”
But what’s in store after Friday 15 November is the big question for a number of island communities as CalMac faces a perfect storm of ship shortages, overhaul absences and breakdowns.
If docking trials had been fruitful, CalMac was keen to sign an immediate charter
with the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company, to have the Ben-My-Chree running the Arran
service through to the beginning of December
This could have released either MV Alfred or MV Isle of Arran and installed a degree of flexibility in reshuffling vessels within the fleet during the drydock season.
Current network plans hinge on repairs to Arran’s main ship, MV Caledonian Isles, being completed by the second half of this month. Updates are anxiously awaited over progress of the vessel which has suffered an extraordinary lengthy outage since January.
CalMac confirmed MV Ben-My-Chree’s trials were unsuccessful as calm weather would
always be required for her to use Brodick. The vessel was at the “very edge of the
limits it was safe to operate to, and we’d be relying on completely benign conditions
to berth.”
MV Ben-My-Chree is wider and deeper than the ideal parameters for CalMac piers, meaning
she is unsuitable for other west coast ferry routes harbours (apart from possibly
Stornoway / Ullapool).
She has now returned to her owners in the Isle of Man.
CalMac pledges to “continue to explore any and all options” to add resilience and capacity to the fleet though finding a ship for hire that safely fits west coast harbours and maintains a regular timetable is extremely difficult.
CalMac explained: “The intention behind looking at MV Ben-My-Chree was to add resilience
to the fleet, and were the trials successful we would have had the ability to redeploy
the fleet and add capacity to both the Arran service and other parts of the network.”
Heartache for CalMac as Ben-
1 November 2024