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Turkish delight beckons for island ferry       25/9/13

The former Stornoway freight vessel MV Muirneag has been sold to Turkey. The ship which was priced at £600,000 is expected to depart the islands for good within days.

A Turkish crew is arriving in Stornoway for a familiarisation and change-over before sailing her out of the country.  

The ageing Muirneag was forced to stop the Ullapool run because crucial safety certifications lapse next month.

In 2011 she underwent a drydock in Poland to keep her within safety requirements until now but her owners, Harrison Clyde, were not willing to risk spending further hefty sums to upgrade her for a special survey because of her age and condition.

Her freight charter with Cal Mac ran out on Saturday and she has been replaced by Seatruck’s MV Clipper Ranger.

Cal Mac had considered doubling up the daytime passenger ferry, MV Isle of Lewis, for the night run  but this would have created severe capacity constraints and posed significant health and safety issues.  

The Muirneag was unfairly nicknamed the Olympic Flame - because she supposedly never went out of port if the wind blew up.

In reality, she could ably handle rough weather crossings and has even coped with Baltic Sea storms - but has 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.

She regularly proved her worth when the MV Isle of Lewis broke down leaving a backlog of traffic. The Muirneag would easily transport the Isle of Lewis’s bookings of vans and trucks, freeing up valuable space and preventing further delays for cars.

Parcels and catalogue orders well as supermarket goods got over the Minch on time for same-day delivery to Lewis and Harris.

The Muirneag is not owned by Cal Mac but has been on charter from for the past 11 years. She is presently managed by V Ships.

Built in Denmark in 1979, she was first known as the MV Mercandian Carrier as she 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.

The Muirneag was not the first ship on the freight run. For countless years, Cal Mac did not take up hauliers demands for an overnight ferry. Then, under European subsidy rules it was helpless to challenge a rival private operator which started the 117 metre long MV Taygran Trader on the route in June 2001.

However, Cal Mac took swift advantage of the Taygran Trader absence in September that year and installed the MV Isle of Arran on the route for a period. Then MV Hascosay from the former Northlink operated for a while before the Muinreag became the permanent vessel.