Muirneag for sale at bargain price 18/6/13
The Stornoway freight vessel MV Muirneag is up for sale - keenly priced at £600,000.
The ship is being marketed to the worldwide shipping industry through brokers.
She will be forced to stop the Ullapool run when her safety certifications lapse
in October.
The Muirneag is not owned by Cal Mac but has been on charter from Harrison Clyde
for the past 11 years and is presently managed by V Ships.
In 2011 she underwent a drydock in Poland to keep her within safety requirements
but her owners are not prepared to invest the sums required to keep her going.
In any case, the new £42 million MV Loch Seaforth being built for the Stornoway -
Ullapool route plans to undertake overnight runs.
While the island sleeps her crew trundle on throughout the dim light of the night,
loading lorries and van to stock supermarkets, shops and stores with food, provisions
and supplies.
Unkindly nicknamed the Olympic Flame - because she never goes out of port whenever
the wind blows up - the Muirneag can handle rough weather crossings and has coped
with Baltic Sea storms - but has extremely poor manoeuvrability when berthing in
port under the light loads on her current run.
The lack of heavier cargo lifts her bottom up and affects her ability to negotiate
close quarters navigation and risks her crashing into the pier.
The Muirneag is not owned by Cal Mac but has been on charter from Harrison Clyde
or the past 11 years. She is presently managed by V Ships. In 2011 she underwent
a drydock in Poland to keep her within safety requirements until now. But her owners
are not prepared to invest the sums required to upkeep her certifications.
In any case, the new £42 million MV Loch Seaforth being built for the Stornoway -
Ullapool route makes her surplus to requirements by next summer.
The Muirneag’s bell belies her early history. It still displays her first name from
1979, MV Mercandian Carrier, from when the Danish-built ship operated around Scandanavia.
She was renamed twice before being sold to P&O in the mid-1980s for the Irish Sea
and her then new name, the Belard is also etched on the bell. P&O were impressed
with her full load manoeuvrability and kept her for 17 years until she was sold to
the Isle of Man Steam Packet Company.
Between 1998 and 2002 she had two other owners who operated her on various routes
in North Sea and the Baltic. Harrison Clyde then bought her for charter to Cal Mac
for the Stornoway haulage run.
