Anyone Interested in Ships

[woodenhead]

If you look at the linked BBC article, CalMac has 35 vessels all of which have to pass through drydock each year for overhaul - that would average 3 ships per month, I would expect they would weight this towards winter months when there are less tourists so perhaps 4 in dock right now is not that unusual.

 

However, the age of the fleet is unusual and they are clearly desperate for the new ferries to be completed so that they retire the oldest of the existing fleet.

 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-scotland-business-64270684

Edited February 24, 2023 by woodenhead

[Bon Accord]

44 minutes ago, KeithMacdonald said:

Is there any truth to this news report?
 

 

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/almost-half-of-large-scottish-ferries-out-of-action/

 

Or is this BS, because this is a good time of the year to do the maintenance, while demand and traffic are low?

 

All vessels in the fleet receive an annual overhaul, with the overhaul season running from mid September to March thereby avoiding the busy summer months.

That's 35 vessels of all sizes from 20 metres to 115m length which have toto go through an annual drydock, inspection and overhaul cycle, all in the space of 7 months with this happening every year. It's planned that there are usually two "major" vessels and two "small" vessels out of service at any one time. Due to the intensity of the timetables in the summer months, all major planned maintenance is generally shoe horned into the annual overhaul cycle, so in any one docking there's a huge amount going on aboard each ship.

As is usual in any maintenance cycle there are occasional overruns as emergent issues are found, this is exacerbated in Calmac land due to the very tight window available to get all the work done, e.g. so many vessels in such a short period of time that a domino effect can occur as one vessel might be delayed in going to overhaul as it awaits a completed vessel to replace it etc.

In a perfect world you'd have spare ships (and crews) lying around to pick up any slack, but that's massively cost prohibitive to the tune of millions of pounds per year. Plus, if there were any spare ships it'd take five minutes before the various well known mouthpieces up and down the west coast (who often aren't local) start demanding extra runs for the purpose of convenience i.e. the ships carrying mostly fresh air, this of course with older ships that are past their best - which is why they're spare in the first place - because they are seen to be lying idle.

Then cue massive local and political ructions seemingly akin to Calmac demanding very "islander" sacrifice their first born just because they take their "nice to have" extra ferry away to make sure another island actually has bread on the shelves in the Co-op. For those unaware, every god foresaken windswept rock on the west coast of Scotland believes itself to be the centre of the known universe and to hell with everyone else.

For Calmac it's the perfect no-win scenario.

Of the ships mentioned in that article, at the moment Isle of Lewis is in the final stages of her (planned) overhaul. Clansman's (planned) overhaul was completed in Birkenhead only last week but issues with a newly overhauled engine became apparent on the voyage home, that's why she's in Glasgow for rectification by Cammell Laird/contractors as the work is under warranty.

Caledonian Isles was supposed to complete overhaul 3 weeks ago, but main engine issues have become apparent which require significant work plus spares to be brought in from Europe. Pre Brexit this could literally be done next day, but these days it's often a week plus due to customs delays etc. She's 30 years old this year and has been run hard for all that time. Her ultimate replacement (Glen Sannox) is in the drydock next door undergoing her pre sea trials drydocking.

Hebridean Isles has emergent propulsion control system issues with a Rolls Royce/Kongsberg system that was fitted about three years ago. This same control system has been retro fitted to a number of other vessels in the fleet with no issue. Like everything these days it's software based so a fair amount of fault finding is required - apparently they can't replicate the fault when they try to, it occurs randomly.

 

I find it rather curious that the "UK Defence Journal" website is remotely interested in the wellbeing of car ferries in Scotland, that is unless the intention is to attempt to make a rather clumsy political point. Since certain parts of that article are lifted directly from Wikipedia word for word it's obvious little actual research went into it.

Edited February 24, 2023 by Bon Accord

[KeithMacdonald]

21 minutes ago, woodenhead said:

However, the age of the fleet is unusual and they are clearly desperate for the new ferries to be completed so that they retire the oldest of the existing fleet.

 

Yes, I noticed that and mentioned it to M'Lady, because of her father's run-ins with CalMac while he was a Harbour Master in various west coast ports. She huffed and suggested maybe we could get grants for a "heritage fleet" of Clyde Puffers and paddle steamers?

[KeithMacdonald]

19 minutes ago, Bon Accord said:

I find it rather curious that the "UK Defence Journal" website is remotely interested in the wellbeing of car ferries in Scotland, that is unless the intention is to attempt to make a rather clumsy political point. Since certain parts of that article are lifted directly from Wikipedia word for word it's obvious little actual research went into it.

 

I concur, it struck me as a bit strange and off-the-normal-tracks for them. That's what cautioned me to ask "Is there any truth to this news report?". Maybe it was a slow news day for them? Or maybe he was just sniffing around while he was in Glasgow for this other story?

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/hms-penzance-visits-glasgow/

[The Johnster]

13 hours ago, St Enodoc said:

Aye, there's the rub.

 

That is, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges we face in many industries and businesses - rail, maritime, aviation or what have you.

 

There is a fundamental disconnect between having a cadre of highly trained, competent and experienced (where they will get their experience is another matter) people to take charge in degraded situations and giving that same cadre virtually nothing to do for >99% of the time.

 

In the rail world, we used to joke that, if the system was running well, some controllers would  deliberately disrupt operations to give themselves the opportunity to sort things out. Increased automation and/or autonomy is the same thing, writ large.

 

Wasn't this sort of deliberately 'giving yourself something to do to ensure you are able to cope with a problem when one does come along' activity the fundamental cause of the Chernobyl disaster, which wouldn't have happened if they hadn't tried to fix it when it wasn't broke...

[jjb1970]

Ro-Ro ferries tend to have much longer lives than typical and 30 years plus is not unusual. If a ship was constructed to a good standard and is well maintained there's no reason why they shouldn't operate for many decades if they're still profitable to operate.

[jjb1970]

On CalMac, and their parent CMal, I honestly feel sorry for their people as they're constantly caught between a rock and a hard place, between providing a good service at an affordable cost and political interference. Rather them than me. I had friends in both, and a recurring opinion was they loved the job and the region but got steadily more disheartened by the baggage that went with it.

[KeithMacdonald]

14 hours ago, jjb1970 said:

they're constantly caught between a rock and a hard place

 

In that respect they have my sympathy. Scottish Government demanding reduced costs, or providing not-enough finance. With suppliers (like Ferguson Marine shipyard) increasing the costs. But not helped by shifting the goalposts by changing the requirements after shipbuilding has started. Or by Ferguson Marine (as a nationalised branch of Scottish Government) potentially being fined by another branch of the same government (the Health and Safety Executive)

 

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/more-ferguson-marine-shambles-nationalised-29283378

 

What to make of this?

 

Quote

SNP could have bought 24 ferries using £340m estimated cost of Ferguson Marine vessels. Pentland Ferries outsourced the building of the MV Alfred, which services Orkney, to Vietnam where it cost £17m and only took two and a half years to build.

 

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-could-bought-24-ferries-28143589

[MarkC]

Interestingly enough, and apropos of nothing in particular, my present ship was built in Vietnam, for Italian owners.

 

One or two interesting examples of Vietglish... Here's 2 of them

 

Worm water - we hope it was supposed to be 'warm'...

Liner Store - presumably Linen Store...

 

Mark

Edited February 25, 2023 by MarkC

[AncientMariner]

In the 1960’s, as a deck cadet, I was appointed to a Japanese-built OBO.  She was a fairly new ship at the time.  Semi-automated, but not UMS.

 

I recall that she had a system of recorded messages in the engine control room intended to bring the attention of engineer officers to potential problems.  One that stood out, delivered in a Japanese accented female voice, would typically announce: “No. 2 Genelatol in Tlubble”.

 

These were in the relatively early days of automation.  Cargo and ballast control valves were hydraulic with pneumatics used to indicate tank levels.  Attending to leakages was a fairly routine and time-consuming process for the crew.  The system called itself H&P - standing for Hydraulics and Pneumatics, and I recall that there was a large plaque with H&P written on the cargo panel to remind us of this.  But as far as the ship’s staff were concerned, and given the number of leakages we had to deal with, hiss and p*** was considered a more appropriate description.

 

John H

[Bon Accord]

2 hours ago, KeithMacdonald said:

 

What to make of this?

 

 

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/snp-could-bought-24-ferries-28143589

 

Drivel mostly, from certain vested interests who don't understand why monohulls are preferred. One of the main individuals/experts wheeled out regularly calling for a catmaran fleet also happens to own a company which designs and builds Catmarans - an entirely independent and unbiased viewpoint of course.

It's worth considering that of all the major ferry companies operating within the UK - those being P&O, Stena, DFDS, Irish Ferries, Calmac, Northlink, Transmanche, Normandy, Brittany, Isle of Man Steam Packet, Condor, Wigtlink and Red Funnel - not a single one of them utilises medium-speed Catmarans as car ferries in the manner of Pentland Ferries (the example used in the article). Not a single one.

A layman would be forgiven for thinking that there might be some good reasons for that.

 

The potential fallout from a state owned and subsidised ferry operator ordering ships from the likes of Vietnam would be absolutely colossal and political suicide for any party. The likes of the Express and their ilk would be the very first to jump in with their howls of outrage and they'd be printing stories about it for years.

 

As for the Alfred, the story is incorrect as to her build cost as she was built for £14 million in 2019. A two and a half year build time for such a simple vessel in a  Far East yard is to me somewhat eyebrow raising.

Her predecessor - Pentalina - which was builtin the Philippines back in 2007 cost £15 million to build. Adjusted for inflation to 2019 prices that comes to £20 million.

They are both of the same generic design, except that Alfred is 15 metres longer. Yet Alfred was built for £5 million less than her smaller predecessor some 12 years before.

I might be sticking my neck out here, but I suspect she's not the most high quality build.

Edited February 25, 2023 by Bon Accord

[New Haven Neil]

errr

 

 

https://www.steam-packet.com/ourvessels/manannan

 

 

[J. S. Bach]

10 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

https://www.steam-packet.com/ourvessels/manannan

Might be interesting but can not get past a "cookie wall"!

[Bon Accord]

6 minutes ago, New Haven Neil said:

errr

 

 

https://www.steam-packet.com/ourvessels/manannan

 

 

 

Manannan is a high speed cat and a totally different beast in design and purpose to Alfred/Pentalina which are not.

The latter are powered by medium speed diesels driving conventional props and are intended to operate year-round, Mannanan (and her equivalent with Condor) are of course waterjet driven and are summer only when the traffic levels can justify their much higher operating costs.

High Speed Cats like Manannan are also a swiftly disappearing breed in British waters; twenty years ago there was upwards of twenty such craft operating around the UK, now there are only two as the operating costs killed them.

[johnofwessex]

There are a number of interesting issues, 

 

Firstly given the size of the Cal Mac fleet you know what your building programme should be years in advance, that in turn ought to then drive deals with yards, equipment suppliers etc.

 

Secondly why does the fleet have so many different designs of ships?  

 

Finally those advocating catamaran ferries which I am not in a position to judge raise the obvious question about having crews that live in the ships, that seem to  me to  be a valid point

[Bon Accord]

5 minutes ago, johnofwessex said:

There are a number of interesting issues, 

 

Firstly given the size of the Cal Mac fleet you know what your building programme should be years in advance, that in turn ought to then drive deals with yards, equipment suppliers etc.

 

Secondly why does the fleet have so many different designs of ships?  

 

Finally those advocating catamaran ferries which I am not in a position to judge raise the obvious question about having crews that live in the ships, that seem to  me to  be a valid point

 

CMAL own, buy and build the ships, Calmac merely operate them. Both organisations are state owned and funded. Accordingly they have to abide by the relevant legislation with regard to public sector procurement; e.g. everything has to go through a very prescriptive tendering process.

Private companies often form relationships with their preferred builders and suppliers, that is however much harder for a public body as every procurement exercise comes under the microscope of the civil service and the various parliamentary committees in London and Edinburgh where ultimately the desire is to select the tender that represents " best value for money".

There are of course hugely varying opinions on what that phrase actually means, particularly between the accountants and those who have to operate the ships.

 

There are so many different designs of ships for two reasons: firstly there is massive variance in traffic levels, seasonal fluctuations and traffic type on the west coast. Secondly the ships all go to different ports with hugely different and varying infrastructure, all owned by different organisations both public and private which massively complicates attempts at standardisation.

 

Crews live onboard for one reason: operational flexibility.

If crew all live ashore then that raises the question of what happens when the vessel has to reposition to another port to cover a breakdown, clear a backlog of traffic or to avoid adverse weather? It's not easy to find two dozen or so hotel rooms at a few hours notice in the middle of winter on the West Coast of Scotland when most operate in the peak tourist months only. It's absolutely impossible to find such accommodation in the Summer.

By the same token if the vessel operates a longer day then to comply with hours of rest legislation crew can take rest periods in their cabins onboard ship and thereby extend the working day. If there is no accommodation available to do so then crew have to be sent ashore (somewhere) and replacements found so as to permit the vessel to operate the same hours. Under the terms of the Maritime Labour Convention there are now (long overdue) specific requirements relating to crew accommodation standards.

Pentland Ferries can adopt the live ashore model because they only operate a single route with only two ports with a single vessel, which starts and ends the day in the same port.

Calmac by contrast operates a network serving 23 separate islands and over 30 ports with some ships ending up in different ports every night so as to maximise the length of the working day and timetabled services, i.e. the crews can't work any more hours to return the ship to a home port.

Pentland Ferries are regularly held up by the critics as some kind of model to which Calmac should aspire, totally ignoring the salient point that they're comparing apples with oranges.

[johnofwessex]

What I dont understand though is why no attempt has been made to standardise the ports?

 

They are all owned by public bodies as far as I am aware and presumably received funds to build the terminals/linkspans.

[Bon Accord]

1 hour ago, johnofwessex said:

What I dont understand though is why no attempt has been made to standardise the ports?

 

They are all owned by public bodies as far as I am aware and presumably received funds to build the terminals/linkspans.

 

They are not all owned by public bodies.

Ownership is a mixture of outright private companies, local harbour trusts, local harbour authorities, local councils and CMAL themselves; and yes all of those have different legal and in some cases political responsibilities.

Port standardisation is nowhere near as simple as it sounds.

Leaving aside the ownership issues, some ports are not necessarily where they can best be sited thereby incurring infrastructure and therefore vessel limitations, them being where they are for longstanding historical reasons.

In an ideal world that would mean re-siting them, but then all manner of political issues come into play e.g. historical convenience, road links, public transport links, environmental concerns, NIMBYs etc.

At the moment the going rate (based on previous experience) to build a brand new pier with associated facilities is something approaching £30 million for somewhere easily accessible. For somewhere that is not (e.g. a remote island) you can add £5-10 million onto that.

Most of the piers currently in use are heavily modified "steamer" piers that have been in use for many decades plus, designed for much smaller vessels which called far more infrequently than today.

For ultimate network standardisation you're looking at half a billion plus in costs, assuming all parties agree.

Then factor in that the combined population of all the islands is only circa 45,000 people. Is such expenditure really justifiable when it could be used to build X number of schools or Y number of hospitals on the mainland which could directly benefit a far greater number of people (i.e. millions)? If you were a politician facing re-election in a few short years which is the most likely votewinner?

The big picture is infinitely far more complex than the gutter press or casual visitor can ever comprehend.

 

[jjb1970]

There was a crazy proposal a few weeks ago that CMAL/CMac should replace their entire fleet with a standard fast ferry design. Coincidentally, it was being pushed by interests trying to sell just such a design, wrapped in a Scottish flag.

 

The routes are different, and require different ships. At the most basic level, sizes are different. Ratios of walk on passengers to ro-ro and private cars to commercial vehicles, whether they operate in open seas or sheltered waters, try and build a standard design for all of that and you'll end up with a monstrosity costing hideously more than building ships suited for their intended routes.

 

There's a good reason why commercial ship owner/operator companies (which, even as someone who loves shipping, will admit can be quite a rapacious bunch not given to charity) optimise ships by route.

 

What is more feasible, and what is done by many commercial companies, is to narrow down the range of machinery and systems used in their fleets to assist with crew familiarity, technical department work, spares contracts etc. So a company may have a long standing agreement with Wartsila diesel, Hamworthy pumps, Furuno bridge systems, Siemens electrics etc. The problem is, as Bon Accord has already identified, such arrangements are normal in commercial shipping but can be difficult for publicly owned bodies to implement. 

 

From observing things as a supplier of services (my former employer classed a lot of the CMAL ships and did a lot of consulting work) I can't help feeling that it's an advertisement for why government shouldn't get involved with trying to be ship owners and operators. The reason for setting up CMAL was to avoid politicised interference in the ship owning side of things but in practice it hasn't really worked. CMAL have the expertise they need, but who'd want to be in a role where their written job specification and company procedures say one thing, but are then faced with putative and even explicit pressure to do 'the right thing' in terms of political optics? 

[Johann Marsbar]

8 hours ago, J. S. Bach said:

Might be interesting but can not get past a "cookie wall"!

 

Looks like this......

 

 

....as taken from my Hotel window on Douglas seafront last year!

[fulton]

Some photos from the other end of the UK, on the River Medway at Rochester, photos taken from the end of my road in Strood this morning, no ships in at the Frindsbury timber wharf, most days at least one ship unloading. Floating crane arrived last week, I'm guessing it is laid up.

[fulton]

General view with Rochester Castle and Cathedral.

[fulton]

Russian submarine, still at Strood.

[Pacific231G]

On 24/02/2023 at 03:18, St Enodoc said:

Aye, there's the rub.

 

That is, in my opinion, one of the biggest challenges we face in many industries and businesses - rail, maritime, aviation or what have you.

 

There is a fundamental disconnect between having a cadre of highly trained, competent and experienced (where they will get their experience is another matter) people to take charge in degraded situations and giving that same cadre virtually nothing to do for >99% of the time.

 

In the rail world, we used to joke that, if the system was running well, some controllers would  deliberately disrupt operations to give themselves the opportunity to sort things out. Increased automation and/or autonomy is the same thing, writ large.

That reminds me of one of the best transferable lessons I had while learning to fly. On the day of my first solo. I'd thought a couple of my landings less than tidy so had been surprised to be sent off alone. In the pub afterward my instructor agreed they had indeed been a bit untidy  but they'd been safe and I'd dealt with them. Then came the real  lesson. He told me that he sometimes had a student who was a real natural and never made a bad landing (I made lots!)  but said that he couldn't send them off  solo because, the first time things did go pear shaped possibly much later, he'd probably kill himself and any passengers. The answer, apparently,  was to put said student into impossible situations from which he couldn't make a good landing but even so such "natural" students still worried him.

If the machine does all the work how do you get to make the small errors that you learn from -not just in initial training but ever afterwards. I watch the Canadian Aircrash Investigation series fairly regularly - which looks at these things without too much drama and what you see is very experienced pilots making rookie mistakes, often, as with the Air France disaster over the Atlantic,  when the  automatics suddenly hand over or drop out without the pilots realising. 

Edited February 26, 2023 by Pacific231G

[New Haven Neil]

21 hours ago, Bon Accord said:

 

Manannan is a high speed cat and a totally different beast in design and purpose to Alfred/Pentalina which are not.

The latter are powered by medium speed diesels driving conventional props and are intended to operate year-round, Mannanan (and her equivalent with Condor) are of course waterjet driven and are summer only when the traffic levels can justify their much higher operating costs.

High Speed Cats like Manannan are also a swiftly disappearing breed in British waters; twenty years ago there was upwards of twenty such craft operating around the UK, now there are only two as the operating costs killed them.

 

Thank you for the info - I know little of the damn thing, other than to avoid it like the plague.  In anything like a sea it has a most disturbing motion, which has made me more seasick than I ever got deep sea!  It's use in the Irish sea is a result of our politician's wishes to have a faster service, more than that we can't talk about but it isn't the most appropriate vessel for sure.  Anything over a 6 and it doesn't sail, and lets face it we get an awful lot of wind more than that here on Fraggle Rock.