Ferry travel chaos continued at the weekend in the aftermath of the RMT union seafarer’s strike.
Travellers were stranded on both sides of the Minch with 100% of Western Isles routes completely hit by the industrial action.
On Saturday it continued to cause major disruption and a huge backlog of delayed
traffic as island schools broke-
Repositioning vessels at the end of the strike added to the problems as ships were in the wrong place.
The MV Isle of Lewis was unable to launch the first of her scheduled extra summer sailings between Stornoway and Uallpool.
The vessel was due to undertake a morning return sailing to take the pressure off the MV Loch Seaforth on the busy route.
However, she was despatched to Oban to urgently transport around 200 runners through
the night to a charity half-
Instead, the Loch Seaforth made an extra sailing discharging a load of irate passengers in Ullapool at nearly midnight on Saturday.
One affected parent was annoyed at being transferred onto a later sailing at the last minute.
He said he had dreaded the prospect of waking up two tired infants to disembark the ferry so late night at the start of their family holiday.
On Barra, the MV Isle of Lewis departed empty despite a request to Cal Mac for her to transport disrupted passengers tour coaches or lorries on her northward voyage.
The Lewis later undertook a sailing between Skye and Lochmaddy.
Ferry travel disruption in strike aftermath
28 June 2015