A team of expert divers arrived in Lochmaddy yesterday to assess the damage to the CalMac ferry involved in Sunday’s collision.
Due to a “technical failure” the MV Hebrides overshot its berth at speed on Sunday while carrying more than 70 passengers. It hit a rocky outcrop and in steering off the rocks, destroyed the top end of a pontoon system.
CalMac’s operations director Drew Collier said: “Our teams are continuing to work directly with passengers affected in order to find the best solutions for them. This was a very rare incident. We have a proud and excellent safety record, and I would like to assure all customers and the public as a whole that safety is the number one priority for the company. We thank people for their forbearance and understanding at this time.”
The ferry should have been plying its regular route between Lochmaddy and Uig, Skye, but instead sat at the pier with a row of vans, unfamiliar ropes and divers and their support teams coming and going.
Water slopped eerily around the hull of the vessel as ropes were lowered to three divers from Lochs Diving Services filming all round the 324ft ship.
Sightseers came to look at the devastation caused to the top section of Lochmaddy’s new pontoon system, built in 2014 and opened by the Princess Royal.
Now the pontoons are jumbled, upturned and leaking polystyrene fragments into the tide.
The pontoons were constructed by local organisation Comann Na Mara (CNM) under the first ever local management agreement with the Crown Estate, who funded the project to the tune of more than £400k.
CNM chairman Gus Macaulay said: “What happened here was a one-off incident where the Hebrides couldn’t stop for technical reasons and collided with the outcrop, hitting the pontoons on the way back, causing the damage.
“The marina is closed at the moment for health and safety reasons until people have looked at it.
“We want to emphasise to yachting people that this was a one in a million accident.”
Mr Macaulay said today(tue) a team from CalMac and Gael Force, the engineers who installed the pontoons, would meet with CNM for an in depth assessment of the damage.
MV Lord of the Isles undertook two return sailings yesterday on the Lochboisdale, South Uist to Mallaig route, to ease some of the disruption. An additional return sailing was also added to the Berneray to Leverburgh, Isle of Harris route.
This contingency timetable was to continue today. Disruption is to continue for some time.