FERRY users on Orkney face a further wait for services until a vital part needed to repair a crippled vessel arrives in Scotland tomorrow.
Serco NorthLink Ferries says it will be another two-and-a-half weeks before the MV Hamnavoe, which sails between Scrabster in Caithness and Stromness in Orkney, is back in action.
It has been out of action for the past 10 days, causing inconvenience for residents and hauliers.
The service is heavily subsidised by the Scottish Government and provides 60% of the car-carrying capacity on the Pentland Firth.
Its difficulties follow the crankshaft in its starboard engine suffering an irreparable breakdown. The Hamnavoe limped down to the Firth of Forth on its port engine at the end of last week to await a replacement crankshaft arriving from Germany.
Stuart Garrett, managing director of Serco NorthLink Ferries, said: "The MV Hamnavoe is currently docked in a wet basin at Rosyth Dockyard, where all preparatory work is progressing according to plan while we await the delivery of the new crankshaft, scheduled to arrive on Tuesday May 7."
However, replacing the crankshaft is a huge engineering undertaking and the company has conceded it is not likely to be back in the Pentland Firth before Saturday May 25.
Mr Garrett stressed the company was still trying to make alternative arrangements.
"We are continuing in our efforts to look for a suitable replacement ferry while the MV Hamnavoe is being repaired. NorthLink has also added a freight crossing from MV Helliar that is running a twice-daily freight service between Scrabster and Stromness to ensure businesses can continue to move goods between Orkney and Caithness."
While the freight service can take cars, it is permitted to carry only 12 passengers/drivers so it is used primarily by hauliers transporting their lorries to and from Orkney.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article