The wrong type of steel, which is more prone to corrosion, was installed on an already delayed and over-budget ferry, the boss of Ferguson Marine has admitted.
David Tydeman, the chief executive, highlighted the error as one of a number of “mistakes” that have been made during the building process.
A mild steel was used on the hydraulic systems for the MV Glen Sannox’s clamshell doors rather than stainless steel.
Tydeman told MSPs on the net zero, energy and transport committee that the bungle had been recognised but acknowledged that there were several other similar mistakes, such as the wrong type of pipes being installed, which had contributed to the delays and rising costs.
Tydeman had outlined recently how the price of delivering the two ferries was likely to be £360 million, although he had priced in a further £30 million for contingencies.
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The initial contract was awarded in 2015 for £97 million and both vessels should have been delivered in 2018.
Tydeman told MSPs that almost 10 per cent of the final price tag — about £35 million — had been spent on redesigning the Glen Sannox. He added that not having a fixed design had been at the root of many of the problems. This meant that some things had been done “twice or even three times” because of the re-routing of pipework and cables.
Tydeman said: “One example would be the hydraulic pipework associated with opening the clamshell doors. That was all installed by mild steel and should have been stainless steel. We had to take all of that out and redo it.”
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He was later quizzed on the steel issue and told how it had been “wrongly specified” by the design team. Tydeman said: “Someone had written down mild steel, had the piping built, had it installed. Then, when we checked it is a seawater environment, a weathertight environment rather than watertight, inside the clamshell doors. It has to be in stainless steel, a simple error which was missed.
“We have had galvanised pipe used in areas it shouldn’t have been used and had to change that as well. We have had lots of mistakes.”
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The committee asked Tydeman how much he thought it would cost to build each ferry in today’s market and he pointed them to a previous estimate of about £70 million.
Recent concerns about the size of doorways and the number of staircases not meeting safety standards are said to have cost close to £1 million to correct. Additional stairs have been installed while 17 further doors have been ordered to meet the stipulations of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency.
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Andrew Miller, the chairman of Ferguson, admitted that it had been increasingly hard to attract and retain people to the board of the shipyard. “People are not keen to do second terms which is disappointing but I understand it,” he said. “Attracting quality people to the board has been significantly challenging.”
The yard was nationalised towards the end of 2019 after effectively running out of money while trying to build the two ferries.
The MV Glen Sannox is expected to go for sea trials in the early part of next year with another ferry, the MV Glen Rosa, likely to follow towards the end of 2024. Tydeman has built in contingencies to pricing in case things go wrong during the trials. He could not rule out further delays and said: “Once we start to run the engines and test the [Glen Sannox] over the coming months that is when we will know when the design works.
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“If the trials go smoothly and the handover happens before the end of March then I’m confident we can stick to the programme for Glen Rosa. If we have problems with Glen Sannox in the trials it will have a cascade effect on Glen Rosa.”
Graham Simpson, from the Scottish Conservatives, said: “This devastating evidence highlights the sheer scale of incompetence that has underpinned the SNP’s ferries scandal from day one.”
