MV Isle of Lewis

History

MV Isle of Lewis was built by Ferguson Shipbuilders in Port Glasgow on the Clyde and entered service in July 1995. At present she is the largest ship ever built by Ferguson's. Her crossing time of around 2 hours and 45 minutes improved upon that of her predecessor, MV Suilven, by at least 45 minutes.

With ever increasing traffic on the crossing, there was speculation that MV Isle of Lewis might be replaced by a larger vessel. In September 2013 the freight vessel Clipper Ranger was chartered to relieve pressure on the route. On 10 June 2012, it was announced that a new £42 million replacement ferry was to be built in Germany. The new 116 metre long ROPAX ferry was named Loch Seaforth and is capable of continuous operation, with a capacity for up to 700 passengers, and 143 cars or 20 commercial vehicles. Loch Seaforth entered service in mid-February 2015 and took over both passenger and freight duties on the route. Since moving to the Barra service in March 2016, Isle of Lewis has been relegated to the role of Stornoway relief ship each October when Loch Seaforth departs for overhaul, with a second relief ship taking care of overnight freight traffic, owing to Isle of Lewis's inability to carry certain hazardous cargo due to her fully enclosed and sealed car deck.

In June 2015, in order to assess where her long-term deployment might bring her, MV Isle of Lewis undertook a tour of major terminals for berthing trials, with varied results. She called at Lochmaddy, Castlebay, Oban, Craignure, Brodick, Ardrossan, Troon, Campbeltown, and Tarbert between 4 and 9 June. CalMac has since stated that no decision as to her future employment has been made. Major work would be required to her stern ramp, to have it off-set to starboard instead of port, in order for her to work on routes such as Mull and Arran. These adjustments would have no potential impact on her returning to Stornoway for relief work, as both Stornoway and Ullapool harbours now possess full-width linkspans.

In September 2015, it was announced that Isle of Lewis will take on the role of Oban-Castlebay vessel (commencing summer timetable 2016) thus allowing MV Lord of the Isles to commence daily return sailings between Lochboisdale and Mallaig.

A book about Isle of Lewis was published on 31 July 2016, in time for the 21st anniversary of the vessel's inauguration in 1995. Published by The Islands Book Trust, MV Isle of Lewis tells the story of the ship up to the present day. It has been written by Lewis-based CalMac enthusiast, and great admirer of the ship, Mark Nicolson, and is available to purchase direct from The Islands Book Trust.

Layout

MV Isle of Lewis is a further development of Isle of Mull and Caledonian Isles' design with a fully enclosed car deck. The car deck is accessed by bow and stern ramps, the latter being offset from the centre of the ship to accommodate the linkspan in Ullapool. The bow ramp is a folding design that is watertight and further protected by a conventional upward hinging bow visor. The bow ramp was originally off-set to suit Stornoway's original linkspan until new facilities opened in April 1997. During an overhaul at Greenock in 2016, the bow ramp was changed to be off-set to port in order to prepare her for her new role as the summer Barra ferry, to make berthing in Oban easier.

There are three lanes to port and two to starboard of the central casing. A hydraulically operated mezzanine deck along each side can be raised or lowered according to traffic requirements. Two stairways from the car deck bring passengers out in the entrance square on deck 4, where the passenger gangways enter.

The entrance square houses the information desk, gift shop and display of locally produced giftware. Forward is a massive cafeteria overlooking the bow and occupying the full width of the ship. Aft are a designated dog area and a truckers' quiet lounge, with the reclining lounge and bar at the stern. Deck 5 houses the observation lounge at the bow, crew accommodation further aft and an open promenade deck stretching down both sides of the ship. Four stairways lead up to the open top deck, providing copious amounts of seating for those passengers either taking advantage of the summer sun, or more often for those brave souls taking on the Atlantic gales.

The upper works of the ship are completed with two raked funnels in red and black company colours and two buff coloured masts. The smaller mast is on top of the wheelhouse and carries the twin radar scanners and radio antennae, while the larger mast is mounted aft on the promenade deck, carrying antennae and the house flag. During the winter refit in 2009, the funnels were fitted with angled exhaust extensions on the funnel tops to direct engine exhaust away from the decks. The ship carries a fast rescue craft and two large motor driven lifeboats, one to port and one to starboard, with a set of automatically deploying inflatable life rafts

Service

Much like her predecessor, MV Isle of Lewis spent virtually her entire career operating between Stornoway and Ullapool, and until April 2015, had hardly sailed on any other route. She has to endure some treacherous seas crossing The Minch, which is one of the most exposed areas around the British Isles. Her lack of versatility around the CalMac network is due to occasional tidal constraints as her 4.2 metre draught makes her unsuitable for full-time use on other routes, in addition to her ramps not being suited to many of the linkspans CalMac use.

In addition to Stornoway and Ullapool, MV Isle of Lewis has also called at other stations over the years for a variety of purposes. She first called at Ardrossan on 26 July 1995 to collect supplies during her delivery voyage up to Stornoway, and was also formally handed over to her new owners during the visit. The next day, 27 July 1995, she carried out berthing trials at Uig, Lochmaddy & Tarbert respectively to assess her suitability should an emergency arise there - testing her bow ramp at Uig, her bow and stern ramps at Lochmaddy, and her bow ramp at Tarbert - before proceeding for trials at Ullapool and Stornoway later that day. On 19 April and 31 May 1998, she called at Lochmaddy to carry out two charters with Ministry of Defence traffic to and from Ullapool, suffering a breakdown on the first charter that required repairs lasting four weeks. On 28 November 1998, whilst returning from an overhaul at North Shields, Isle of Lewis made a maiden call at Stromness, Orkney to 'show the flag' as CalMac were bidding for the contract to operate the Northern Isles services instead of the then-incumbent P&O Scottish Ferries. It is worth noting that until the appearance of MV Hebrides, Isle of Lewis was the flagship for CalMac, hence the reason she was the vessel selected to promote CalMac's interest in the Northern Isles franchise. On 11 November 2008, during a period when Ullapool linkspan was closed for maintenance and the regular freight vessel was stormbound at Stornoway, Isle of Lewis called at Uig to retrieve the stranded freight traffic that was bound for Lewis, whilst operating a temporary passenger-only service between Stornoway and Ullapool during the works.

On 3 April 2015, MV Isle of Lewis carried out a special sailing from Uig to Lochmaddy to assist Finlaggan, which was covering the route whilst Hebrides was on winter relief duty. This was a historic day for Isle of Lewis, as this was her first passenger sailing on a CalMac service other than her regular Stornoway-Ullapool roster. This was followed by special sailings between Tarbert and Lochmaddy on 19 and 20 June following a breakdown to the Sound of Harris ferry.

From 20 April to 18 May 2015, MV Isle of Lewis operated a temporary service for vehicles and passengers from Stornoway and Uig whilst the 42-year-old linkspan at Ullapool was replaced with a new two-lane design that is expected to improve loading and unloading of the ferries. Clipper Ranger ran a freight service from Stornoway to Uig in addition, and required to have her stern ramp modified for this. Loch Seaforth ran from Stornoway to Ullapool as normal, but on a passenger only basis. The linkspan works were completed early, on 15 May, although it did not reopen for business until 18 May as planned.

Isle of Lewis then carried out a series of special sailings between Oban and Castlebay - taking place between and 24 and 27 June - in response to strike action by RMT union members of CalMac on 26 June causing severe disruption across the whole network. One of Isle of Lewis' special crossings included a 0046 from Oban to Castlebay on 27 June in order to transport disrupted runners to the annual 'Barrathon' marathon event, technically 'saving' that from total cancellation as a result of the disruption caused by the RMT strike.

Following a breakdown to MV Hebrides on 28 July 2015, Isle of Lewis took over the Uig, Lochmaddy & Tarbert services until 29 July allowing Hebrides to sail to Stornoway for repairs to her propulsion unit. Although she had given her first non-Stornoway/Ullapool voyage in April, this was the first time Isle of Lewis officially served more than a full day of service on, as well as be in sole charge of, another route other than her own, and took it all in her stride despite having to work by the available tide at Uig owing to her deeper draught, and she was successful on the 'triangle'. Hebrides was able to return to service early on 30 July, although Isle of Lewis remained on the triangle for the remainder of the day to clear any backlog of traffic, and returned to Stornoway following an extra sailing from Lochmaddy to Uig.

In early 2016, Isle of Lewis relieved at Scrabster to Stromness for NorthLink whilst MV Hamnavoe sailed for her refit. This was a reciprocal arrangement after MS Hildasay provided cover at Stornoway during the dry-docking of Loch Seaforth.

In March 2016, Isle of Lewis began a new phase of her life when she began serving Oban and Castlebay, Barra, which allowed MV Lord of the Isles to commence a daily return service between Lochboisdale and Mallaig, thus ending South Uist's direct link to Oban. These summer arrangements, announced by Transport Scotland, are likely to be a stop-gap until the new ferries for Arran, North uist and Harris are due in service either 2018 or 2019. On her first official day on the Barra service, Isle of Lewis completed all of her sailings in spite of an amber alert of adverse weather and swell conditions.