Passengers on CalMac’s Stornoway - Ullapool crossings face an extra ten minutes on sailings.
But turnaround times will be reduced by the same amount, creating pressure during busy spells at Stornoway to get vehicles off and on the vessel.
MV Loch Seaforth can no longer maintain her previous two-and-a-half-hour passage time.
Schedules will have a two-hour and 40-minute journey from the end of March.
The vessel is “constantly running late” due to what CalMac’s calls “hull growth build-up.”
That’s a reference to marine growth or biofouling where barnacles and algae attaches to the underside of a ship.
This marine growth causes drag and is a plague for all ship operators, reducing vessel speed and losing time.
Special anti-fouling paint is regularly applied in dry dock - CalMac ships undergo an overhaul every year - to try and keep the algae at bay.
However, MV Loch Seaforth has a problem with marine growth on her underwater hull section.
Increasing speed is one option to maintain current arrival times but would mean burning more fuel to operate at top service speed.- which could be an expensive choice given marine diesel price levels in the shipping sector.
To provide more certainty about arrival times, CalMac has gone for a longer passage duration.
Citylink’s bus timetable from Ullapool will change to connect with the later ferry arrival.
Stornoway ferry passengers face longer sailing times as ferry ‘gets slower’
23 January 2023
