Probe into ferry crash 29/1/14
An investigation is underway after a ferry suffered serious damage after crashing
into a pier on Tuesday morning.
The MV Clipper Ranger narrowly missed grounding on rocks after bouncing the recoil
from the collision in Stornoway harbour.
The vessel will be out of action for a while. She is due to be patched up at Stornoway
before heading to a mainland shipyard for repairs.
Lorry driver Paul McGlynn was onboard with a load of steel pipes destined for the
Arnish fabrication yard.
Mr McGlynn feared they had crashed into another ship.
He said: “I was watching the TV and all of a sudden there was a bang. I thought we
hit another ship -seriously. It was that loud. The noise was terrible and the lights
went out. It was just traumatising. It frightened the life out of me.
“There was chaos everywhere. Honestly, I thought we were going down. In all the years
I been on ferries I have never heard a bash like that.”
Norman Macarthur of Stornoway Shipping Services said he saw the darken ship “hitting
or just coming off” the pier.
He added: “For the next ten or 15 minutes she was drifting towards the castle grounds
and came very close to grounding.”
Seatruck - the owners of the 122-metre long ship - flew an investigation team to
the island. They concluded the ship cannot commercially operate until major repairs
to replace stoved-in steel plating are undertaken.
MV Clipper Ranger is owned, operated and crewed by Seatruck and chartered by Caledonian
Macbrayne for an overnight freight service between Stornoway and Ullapool. Her crew
has earned praise from local hauliers as they will always sail in a break in bad
weather even outwith her timetable.
The crash means that one of the Islay ferries, MV Hebridean Isles, will be pulled
off her route to take over from Thursday morning.
It appears the Ranger suffered a complete power blackout at the worse possible moment
when while undertaking a critical manoeuvre in berthing. It is understood the power
cut out before speed could be reduced so the vessel smacked into the port’s number
1 pier at faster than normal.
The disabled ship then recoiled off the wharf and drifted helplessly towards rocks
on the other side of the harbour.
Only the skill of her captain stopped her from grounding and he was able recover
the ship to safety within a very short period.
Alasdair Eagles, managing director of Seatruck, said: “A full investigation is underway.
A survey team is on site but it is too early to say what went wrong.”
We have to repair the ship before she goes back on the route.”
A Cal Mac spokesman said: "The ship's owner has made us aware that the Clipper Ranger
sustained damage in Stornoway this morning in a berthing incident, but it would be
entirely inappropriate for us to comment on any aspect of that incident which is
a matter for Seatruck and the relevant authorities.
"We recognise the importance of the freight service to the Western Isles and are
planning to bring the MV Hebridean Isles from Islay to maintain the service while
Seatruck repair the vessel."