SHIPBUILDING IN THE UK PUT IN THE SPOTLIGHT
letter of the month
I read (Ferry News, SM, May) of yet further extended delivery dates for the two new Caledonian MacBrayne vessels, which are now desperately required for Scottish routes. These ferries are already over five years overdue and well over budget.
When I was a young boy in the 1950s and 1960s I watched, from our house overlooking the ‘Tail of the Bank’ at Greenock on the Clyde, as newly completed vessels set off on their delivery voyages, many heading round the world. I can remember, in 1961, the nine ferries completed by
Fairfield`s Govan Shipyard for service on the Bosphorus, Turkey setting off for their new home ports. I am not aware that any of these were delivered late, or over budget.
A few pages on, I read the review of the new Carnival cruise ship Carnival Celebration. Construction of this huge vessel began on 13 January 2021 and it was completed on 2 November 2022, a building time of less than two years. Comparing this quite remarkable feat with the woeful wait for two replacement ferries for Cal Mac paints a sad picture of the decline of the UK, and the Clyde in particular, as a world-class force in the shipbuilding industry.
It is a further irony that the Scottish Government has now ordered two new ferries from a Turkish yard, while completion of their home-built vessels remains uncertain. I have every confidence that Turkey will deliver on time and on budget. But the whole episode leaves my boyhood memories tinged with sadness.
Jim Shearer, Edinburgh
Looking at the photos of the City of Colombo/Ripon/Wellington/Winnipeg/Newcastle/Auckland Class vessels, I am reminded how big the funnels appeared to be and then, from the back of my mind, I thought I remembered that they were 49ft 10in high. But can that be correct? Scaling off the photographs it appears that they were indeed that high.
I was interested to read the article by Conrad Waters about the Battle of North Cape (SM, June). A few years ago my wife and I undertook a cruise on a small cruise ship to Svalbard from Bergen. The last port of call in Norway was the North Cape, after which we headed north into the Barents Sea. North Cape had a small museum describing the local area and its geography, as well as a series of displays about World War II, recording the events of Christmas 1943 in detail. It sets out the role and purpose of the Allied Arctic convoys to Russia and the convoys’ trials and tribulations, successes and some failures.