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Delayed restart to sailings from Ardrossan to Arran

Posted by (Lake District, England) on

The Caledonian Isles was due to reopen the Ardrossan to Brodick route today.

Unfortunately she has a technical issue with her gearboxes, and this is delayed to at least Tuesday.

Meanwhile sailings from Troon will continue with the Alfred and the Glen Sannox. There is a lack of crew availability for the MV Alfred so from tomorrow morning she will sail with a reduced passenger certificate of 230 (down from 428).

Affected passengers are being notified and the Troon route is currently closed for all new bookings while the situation is resolved.

Update 1- the matter remains under resolution. Specialist assistance is being sent from Norway. She is not now resuming service until at least Saturday 21 June.
Update 2- now further delayed to at least Wednesday 25 June.

Posted by
9931 posts

FURTHER UPDATE-
The Caledonian Isles is now off service until further notice and is returning to dry dock in Birkenhead.
Liability for the cost of further repairs apparently has yet to be determined.
A 2 ship service will be run from Troon until 6 July, except 25 June when only the Glen Sannox will run due to crew training.
The MV Alfred will be off service from 7 to 21 July for her own much delayed docking.
Service plans are yet to be confirmed for that period.
The alternative route to Lochranza can be expected to be very busy.
However the only way a support ship for the Glen Sannox can be found will probably be at the expense of sailings to Mull and also, as a knock on effect, sailings to Skye.

CalMac are currently contacting affected passengers.

If you are not currently booked to Arran consider going to Bute or Cumbrae instead until this is resolved

Posted by
732 posts

This has been quite a story to follow, Stuart. We were planning to spend most of our upcoming vacation week on Arran, but I had to pivot and change our intended itinerary bc of two injuries (one to each foot if you can believe it-ugh!) that would have made the plans of hiking about the island quite difficult. We’re going to Edinburgh and Glasgow with side/day trips instead now. With seeing the news about all of these ferry and bus interruptions on Arran, I feel for visitors trying to make alternate arrangements quickly.

Thanks for letting people know about the status of the transportation situations.

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