SEVEN Scots services have been suspended through a combination of bad weather and issues with Covid.
One of Scotland's busiest routes to Stornoway on the Isle of Lewis was suspended on Wednesday "due to continued strong westerly winds and associated sea swells". The vital 10.30pm freight sailing from Stornoway had also been cancelled.
On Thursday the service was suspended again, this time due to "Covid protocol". The same reason was given for the suspension of the services to Berneray, South Uist.
The state-controlled ferry operator CalMac said the issues surrounded two positive cases of Covid on MV Loch Seaforth and another on MV Loch Bhrusda. Both vessels will need replacement crew.
By early afternoon on Thursday, bad weather was blamed as services to Coll and Tiree, the small isles of Eigg, Muck, Rum and Canna and the Isle of Gigha were suspended. The Mull to Iona and Mallaig to Armadale crossings were also suspended.
One or more sailings have been disrupted on seven other services.
State-controlled ferry operator CalMac said: "Cancelling a sailing is a decision we do not take lightly. We know it will inconvenience our customers and the communities we serve. However, the safety of our customers and crew must come first. In this instance, the Master of the vessel has judged it is necessary in response to the assessment of adverse weather conditions."
The ferry operator also warned: "Further poor weather is forecast for the rest of this week, February 23 onwards. This is likely to last over the weekend and continue into next week – and will bring further disruption to our network."
On Wednesday sailings on 12 of CalMac's 29 ferry services were suspended in the morning through a mixture of bad weather and a ferry breakdown.
Services provided by state-controlled ferry operator to Islay were cancelled for the rest of the day due a technical issue with 12-year-old MV Finlaggan’s starboard main engine.
Island services had already been badly hit at the end of last month because of issues with the same engine. Then, repairs were said to have been successful to allow a resumpton of crossings.
That comes six months after CalMac apologised after services were cancelled due to problems with Finlaggan's turbo charger.
Finlaggan was back in operation on Thursday after a repair.
Another of Scotland's busiest routes was suspended on Wednesday after the 16-year-old MV Loch Shira, which can carry 36 cars and 250 passengers was also out of action because of a sewage system problem.
CalMac said engineers were working to resolve the issue.
The ferry operator had attempted to reposition an alternative vessel to Largs but said this had not been possible due to weather conditions.
Loch Shira was back in operation on Thursday after a repair.
It comes two days after the transport minister refused to immediately commit to providing extra vessel support for Scotland's beleaguered ferry service as concerns rose over previous disruption which has led to a failure to deliver vital supplies to Scots islands.
Jenny Gilruth, spoke out after Rhoda Grant, the shadow cabinet secretary for the rural economy and tourism called for extra cargo capacity and the purchase of new ferries saying the fault for the chaos was at the door of the SNP government "which has shown itself to be incompetent".
The concerns surfaced after an unprecedented period of disruption due to a perfect storm of weather, technical issues, Covid restrictions and extended scheduled dry-docking which had severely limited available tonnage across the network.
The Herald revealed that the only grocery store on Colonsay had said it had to go without supplies for at least eight days as a mix of bad weather and vessel issues have slashed lifeline services.
The general store lodged a complaint over a failure in communications with the state-controlled ferry operator CalMac.
Western Isles council leaders have warned that a lack of resilience in the services are hitting the delivery of essentials to the islands.
A fortnight ago it emerged issues with short cabling were expected to add further delay and increase costs over the already put back delivery of two green vessels at the centre of Scotland's ferry fiasco.
Meanwhile the ferry destined to serve the Isle of Arran as part of a bid to support Scotland's ageing ferry fleet is set to be delayed even further after a “blunder” with internal cabling was discovered.
Both Glen Sannox (Hull 801) and Hull 802, being built at the nationalised Ferguson Marine shipyard in Port Glasgow, rely on a “complex network” of more than 9800 cables.
The cost of both vessels has doubled to around £200m while their delivery is nearly five years late.
CalMac has said unforeseen ferry faults had been partly to blame for disruption along with the impact of recent storms.
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