Two Ferries, One Shipyard

Two ferries, same shipyard, but Scotland’s government pays twice as much.

Last month, the Scottish government company CMAL, which owns the ports, harbours and ferries in the Clyde and around the Western Isles, signed a contract with a Turkish shipyard to build two new ferries. This week, the private Norwegian operator Torghatten Nord, announced an order for a slightly larger ferry, from the same shipyard, at half the price.

That’s right, as the Mull and Iona ferry users’ committee explains, the Scottish government has blithely agreed to pay for its ferries twice what a private operator is prepared to pay for them.

It’s not that the Norwegians’ ferry will be slower or more polluting. It will have a similar diesel-electric hybrid propulsion system to CMAL’s. It will have more advanced and larger batteries, helping reduce its emissions. And it will travel twice as far each day than the CMAL ferries.

So why, ask the Islanders—who are also Scottish taxpayers, after all—do the CMAL ships cost so much. Well, one reason is that CMAL ships have far larger crews. In fact, thanks to the hard protectionist efforts of the RMT union, they have much larger crews than any ferry operator in Europe. And so CMAL has to have extra cabins for crew members, plus a refectory for them. Oh, and they’ve thrown in a gym as well. While good systems management means the Norwegian ferry will operate round the clock with a crew of just ten, CMAL has to provide for a crew of 31.

So, 200% overstaffing is one reason why the CMAL ferries are so expensive to build—and to run. Then, CMAL starts from scratch and commissions a completely unique ferry, never built before, while the Norwegians start with a common, tested design and simply tweak it as necessary. CMAL also builds in over-complicated engineering and has large passenger spaces with dedicated dining rooms—hardly necessary on the 46-minute journey to Mull. I took a Mediterranean ferry on a four-hour trip from Spain to Morocco, and there was no dedicated restaurants. You just took your food back to your seat.

“Finally,” says the ferry users’ committee, “publishing the price you expect to pay 12 months before putting the tender out doesn’t really help your negotiating position.”

Well, neither it does.