Ferguson Marine owner Jim McColl Shipyard owner frustrated at ferry delay

CalMac ferries faces rising costs for complications and delays on two new ships, according to the owner of the shipyard where they are being built.

Ferguson Marine owner Jim McColl said they were prototypes and more work should have been done on their design before tendering the contract.

He said talks with Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd, which buys and leases the CalMac ships, had been "frustrating".

The £97m order is as much as a year behind schedule.

The Scottish government, which wholly owns Cmal and CalMac, has described the situation as "disappointing".

The Scottish government has given a £30m loan facility to Ferguson Marine, saying it was to help diversify the yard.

Mr McColl told the BBC's Good Morning Scotland programme the borrowing facility, which has not yet been drawn down, was to help with the rising costs to Ferguson's of handling the Cal-Mac order.

He said he was pressing for Cmalto accept it will have to pay more for them, due to rising costs and delays.

The first ferry, Glen Sannox, was launched last November, but is far from complete. It is fuelled by both liquified natural gas and marine oil.

The ships are needed urgently by Cal-Mac, to meet growing car, van and haulage demand on Hebridean routes, and because the ageing Hebridean fleet is becoming more prone to breakdowns.

Mr McColl said: "We have incurred significantly higher costs in the work we've had to do on these ferries, and we've been engaging with CMAL to discuss these costs.

"Maybe the best way to put it is that we've been frustrated in these discussions. We've been discussing it for over a year, and we have been funding that, so it's been using a lot of our capital.

"We've been funding it solely.

The billionaire businessman added: "Our view is that these have been genuine changes that have had to be made to the work we've been doing, and they're changes that ought to be incurred by the buyer."

Mr McColl explained that the ferries were "prototypes", requiring Lloyds, the marine insurer and the Coastguard and Maritime Agency to go through new certification for the design being used - adding considerably to the time being taken.

"They normally work to standard designs or designs that they've got, and they will approve or certify the ferry at every stage," he said, adding "MCA are responsible for the safety and security of the people. So it's all got to be double-checked and rubber-stamped.

"Dual-fuelled LNG ferries have not been built in the UK. This is a first off for Lloyds and for MCA, so everything we're going through, we have to establish what is the acceptable process for this, and they have to certify it, but we're writing the process for certifying it as we go, and that's delayed things.

"I believe that perhaps more design development work could have been done prior to the invitation to tender going out, rather than dealing with multiple things that are arising as we got into the build process. But we're working diligently through that."

Mr McColl also said Ferguson Marine had been extensively refurbished to get it ready it for new Royal Navy and commercial contracts.

The yard is bidding for contracts to build fishing trawlers and support vessels for offshore energy.

Ferguson is also building linkspans - for vehicles to transfer from vessels to quaysides - for Western Ferries operating at Gourock and Dunoon.

And there is work fabricating equipment for offshore wind arrays.

Mr McColl said three shipbuilding bids should soon reach conclusions, with hopes of winning work from them.

You can hear the full interview with Jim McColl on Good Morning Scotland, just after 0730.