Scotland’s trade minister has said he is disappointed that the Ferguson shipyard missed out on building new vessels for the national ferry fleet.
Ivan McKee also failed to rule out further delays to two long-awaited vessels being built at the nationalised yard in Port Glasgow. He was responding to questions in Holyrood as to why a £105 million contract for two new ferries for Islay was last week given to the Cemre Marin Endustri yard in Turkey.
Ferguson Marine was taken into public control in 2019 after a bitter dispute between its then owners and Caledonian Maritime Assets, the quango responsible for ferry procurements over the spiralling costs and delays on a £97 million contract awarded in 2015 to build two ferries for the Scottish fleet.
Turkish shipyard preferred bidder for Islay and Jura ferries
Neither vessel is ready to go to sea. There was a warning recently that cables installed were too short and must be ripped out. McKee was asked by Graham Simpson, the Scottish Conservative MSP, what the cost of that would be and the implications for the delivery of the vessels. The MV Glen Sannox should have begun operating in 2018 but is now supposed to be delivered between July and September this year. The other, known as Hull 802, is pencilled in for spring next year.
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McKee said: “Progress has been made to refit the cables and correct for that error. In terms of the impact of that on the delivery the site director will be giving a report and making information available on that very shortly.”
McKee said the yard would be bidding for contracts in the future, saying: “We were disappointed Ferguson Marine did not progress to the invitation to tender stage for the Islay vessel replacement procurement last year.
“The Scottish government remains fully committed to supporting the yard to secure a sustainable future including a pipeline of future work.” He added: “We know the yard is actively pursuing vessel opportunities and that Ferguson Marine is back to being a serious contender for future vessel contracts.”
David Tydeman took over as the chief executive of Ferguson last month to replace Tim Hair, the turnaround director who charged almost £2 million after arriving at the end of 2019.
Tydeman is getting a £205,000 basic salary with a bonus worth up to 40 per cent. According to a recent disclosure under Freedom of Information rules, he is also receiving £1,250 per month instead of pension contributions, an annual car allowance worth £10,200 and a relocation package of £20,000.
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Only 13 of the carrier’s 29 routes were operating a normal service yesterday. Five routes were cancelled and six faced disruptions to service and a further five were liable to possible disruption, with the operator’s effort to overhaul its ageing fleet during the low season resulting in ferry services being provided by smaller vessels than usual or by a single vessel.
Robert Morrison, operations director for CalMac, said: “Our services are completely stretched and unfortunately we do not have any spare vessels we can use.”
He added that service updates give information to passengers so that they have notice of any potential changes to their journeys and that there was a variety of reasons as to why routes may display an amber warning, which signifies a disrupted service.
“In terms of annual overhaul, it is a legal requirement that all vessels are taken out of service for maintenance once a year. As we have no spare vessels to use when this happens, we move our remaining tonnage around the network to ensure lifeline services are protected,” he said.
CalMac is a subsidiary of the holding company David MacBrayne, which is owned by the Scottish government.
