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Engineer shortage blamed for new delay for Turkish-built CalMac ferry

News imageCMAL A large black and white ship with red funnels and a red bulbous bow just poking above the water. The name Loch Indaal can be seen on its bowCMAL
MV Loch Indaal, the second of the four ships being built at the Cemre shipyard, is now expected to be handed over in November

The handover of a new CalMac ferry being built in Turkey faces another short delay due to a shortage of engineers.

MV Loch Indaal was expected to be ready by the end of October, but ferries agency CMAL said the ship had still not secured final regulator approval.

In a letter to MSPs, it said the handover was now expected by mid-November and would be followed by up to 10 days preparation for the ship's voyage to Scotland.

The ship, which was already 20 months behind schedule, will eventually enter service on CalMac's Islay route.

The delay is the second to be announced in 24 hours, after it was confirmed that handover of another new CalMac ferry MV Loch Rosa would be put back to February to allow for re-designed propellers to be fitted prior to handover.

MV Loch Indaal is the second of four identical ferries ordered from the large Cemre shipyard.

In June CMAL revealed it had paid in-full for all four of the ships, thought to be about £200m in total, despite only one of them, MV Isle of Islay, having been completed.

CMAL said this would help the Turkish firm cope with financial challenges and would secure its legal ownership of the ferries.

Since then the Scottish government has agreed to pay an extra £20m to cover extra project costs.

In its latest update to Holyrood's transport committee, CMAL said inspectors for the UK's Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) had visited the shipyard during October but there were some unresolved issues with the ship.

The letter continued: "The shipyard has experienced challenges securing the availability of specialist engineers from Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs), which will extend delivery beyond the end of October.

"While this is disappointing, the matter is outside the shipyard's control."

CMAL said the MCA inspectors would return in the week beginning 9 November.

Work is also continuing at the Cemre shipyard on MV Lochmor and MV Claymore which are due to serve Little Minch routes from Skye to Harris and North Uist.