Prototype Ferries - A Bridge Too Far
Scotland’s ferries, owned and operated (as Caledonian MacBrayne or ‘CalMac’) by the Scottish government, have become a disaster for the 70,000 people who live permanently in the islands served by their ferries — and the thousands of business, visitors and tourists who rely on these lifeline services.
Ask them, and you will hear only complaints about incompetent management, the chronic unreliability of lifeline services, ageing ships that suffer constant breakdowns, fraught nerves, missed connections and abandoned hospital appointments, irregular supplies in the shops, lost business and more.
Yes, Scotland sometimes has rough weather. But that does not stop ferries running reliably in Norway or Canada. But then most ferry operations there are performed by private companies who know they face competition if they fail customers.
Cal Mac is a state-run operator and competitors are not allowed. The ships’ owner, Caledonian Marine Assets Limited (CMAL), also runs many of the harbours. Both are owned by the Scottish government. As is Ferguson Marine shipyard commissioned to build the two new dual-fuel car and passenger ferries.
This lack of competition — and CalMac’s domination by the RMT union — might explain why Scotland has probably the oldest ferry fleet in Europe, with staffing levels almost twice the European average.
It might also explain why the decision to update the fleet with two dual-fuels to serve CalMac’s busiest routes (Arran and the triangular route between Uig, Tarbert and Lochmaddy) has descended into farce. Political dithering meant that by the time the decision was made, much of the fleet was already ending its design life, leaving CalMac scuttling around to fill the gaps caused by frequent breakdowns. Rather than use a true and trusted design, two completely new ships were commissioned — each different but both massive, carrying 127 cars and 1,000 passengers.
And of course the new ships had to be ‘green’ — capable of running on marine diesel or liquefied natural gas (LNG). Which was a brave move, given that there no pure LNG ferries yet operate anywhere in Europe. Unsurprisingly, the design and build problems multiplied. The ships are now predicted to be delivered five years late. Meanwhile, passengers face daily disruptions.
The budget — already enormous for island ferries — has escalated too. The original £97m estimate took no account of the duel-fuel design challenges. The final bill could rise as high as £400m, according to one former government shipbuilding adviser — and that doesn’t even include the shore infrastructure, such as LNG storage facilities.
Kevin Hobbs, Chief Executive of CMAL, denies the idea that the two new ships are over-ambitious prototypes, saying “hundreds of LNG vessels have been built and are operational across the world.” But then most of those are designed for long-haul tanker/container fleets, not island-hopping ferries. Operators are generally cautious about using LNG.
The special equipment needed to ship, deliver and store (or ‘bunker’) LNG impose significant costs. For most ports, the cost too big and the risks associated with storage are too large. For example:
the extreme low temperatures (-162°C) requiring special materials for storage
the need for more storage space of up to 150% of fuel oil storage space.
the dangers of leaks, both due to the extreme cold and the risk of asphyxiation (the gas is odourless and colourless, making detection virtually impossible)
the need for a strict separation of gas and air — burning gas can only be extinguished by removing either the oxygen or the gas
as venting to air is not an option, a means to deal with boil off gas is required.
But the main risk is from Boiling Liquid/Expanding Vapour Explosion. That can be caused by a rupture in a storage facility, allowing the liquid gas to evaporate too rapidly for the valve systems to withstand.
Nor are LNG’s ‘green’ credentials very solid. It is still a fossil fuel and lower-carbon options may well supersede it. The UK’s LNG is currently imported mainly from Qatar. CalMac’s supplies will have to be driven hundreds of miles from the Isle of Grain facility in Kent. And the Danish firm handed a £5m contract to build two huge underground tanks to store the LNG for the new CalMac ships have revealed they will not be ready until 2025, meaning that until then, these ‘dual-fuel’ vessels will have to run on diesel anyway. It's all a classic example of a pipe-dream specification that doesn’t consider the infrastructure costs needed, nor subject these requirements to rigorous examination by an independent review team.
Meanwhile, the RMT and everyone else in the nationalised ferry system has resisted the idea of allowing in competitors in to fill the service gaps. They even rejected the idea of bringing in the Pentland Ferries standby ferry MV Pentalina, which had conducted successful trials on the Arran route. During the trials, the RMT wrote to the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, alerting them to “significant unauthorised alterations to the superstructure” of the Pentalina. Those alterations mostly amounted to the removal of a fridge from the on-board servery, which consequently had an unintended impact on the fire separation between the galley and the passenger lounge — a ‘problem’ that could be fixed in hours. The fact is that the RMT don’t want to be shown up by any competition.
So islanders’ lives and livelihoods remain blighted, because of ideology, politics, bureaucracy and resistance to competition. Isn’t it time we ended this whole charade?