Back on the road/water again

All repairs completed and passed by surveyors who said that it was a good job.  We picked up the run at 4 this afternoon, did a round trip to Mull where the gangway has broken down, again, and then tied up in Oban for the evening.  Thank you to the Hebridean Isles, our replacement, who headed off south to resume the Islay run.  As you can imagine we are all taking things very cautiously at the moment.

Nearly there

Not too much longer and we'll be back in service again. Friday
afternoon now and this is the last of the welding being completed, a
coat of paint tonight and another one tomorrow morning will cover up
the new work. A surveyor from Lloyds is attending in the morning to
check things out and sign us off to let us carry passengers again.
It's been a long week for everyone.
The weather has taked a turn for the better too with hardly any rain
today, the Polish welders will be looking forward to heading back to
the East Coast.

Good progress

Today sees real progress towards the repair work being completed. The
replacement steel for the shell of the hull is now in place and the
internal work can now be completed. There is a part that requires a
bent piece of steel, not having a rolling mill nearby the application
of heat and a chain block will hopefully make the correct curve.
Clever guys, but I guess they have done this kind of work before.
I have included a picture of the visor in use as it may not be
entirely clear to all of my readers what I'm talking about. I imagine
that it is called a visor because of its similarity to that fitted on
a suit of armour.
It is hoped that the work will be completed on Friday evening, get a
coat of paint and then be checked by a surveyor on Saturday morning.
If all goes to that plan we should be back in service that afternoon.

Work continues

A couple more photos showing how the repair work is coming along.
Since these were taken the steel plate is about to be offered up and
welded in place. Then the strengthing members inside will need to be
welded in.
The repair team estimate two days of welding work which takes us
through to Friday evening then the repair has to be surveyed, hose
tested for water tightness and painted. I think we are looking at
getting back into service by Saturday afternoon at the earliest now,
which will make it a week from the incident.
Still raining here in Oban, hasn't stopped since Monday morning but
mild at 10.5 C

The work goes on

Two pieces of sheet steel arrived last night, the main one pictured is
going to be welded in place on the hull to replace the bent bit. In
the background you can see the steel sections that are going to become
the frames and beams inside the visor.
This is a photo of the Hebridean Isles that has come down from up
North to replace us on the Mull service. Unfortunately they haven't
had their troubles to seek today as her visor is out of action.
Hopefully the Mull drivers are good at reversing on or off, and that
they can get it fixed soon.

At Oban, Nos. 2 RoRo berth

Port bow with section cut away

The section of damaged plate.

Looking down onto the foc'stle head

The repair team turned up last night and started this morning to
repair the damage to the hull. It made me quite nostalgic hearing the
Polish accents of the guys carrying out the work who have come from a
firm in Aberdeen.
A scaffolding has been erected to hang over the side of the bow and a
platform is in place to allow the men access to the outside of the
hull at the point of the damage. This is the comparatively easy bit,
now onto the repair. The new steel is scheduled to arrive tonight and
will then be fabricated to fit and then of course fitted which will be
tricky.
The damage is to the lifting visor so the team are working in quite a
confined space inside. On the outside the overhang of the bow and
having to work over the water makes life difficult there. None of
this helped by the Oban weather which overnight turned to steady rain
and a stiff south westerly breeze.
We would normally have been on our way to Colonsay this afternoon
after a 7:00 am Mull run, but our replacement is doing sterling service
for us and keeping the Island folk in bread, milk and gin.

Events

Wintry weather here on the West coast. We were on our way back to
Oban and the wind was pretty strong particularly in the squalls.
In Oban we have to turn 90 degrees on and slide sideways onto the
berth which today put the ship side on to the wind. Just as we turned
a squall came through and caught the bow sending the ship hurtling in
towards the quay wall. Despite dropping the anchor and using the full
bow thrusters off we came in with a real thump. The port bow caught
the edge of the gangway structure and the lower part of the visor, on
the bow, compressed the rubber fendering completely in so that the
ship's side came in contact with the concrete structure holding the
fender. You can see the bit in the photo.
Then we bounced off moved back a bit and came back in again to strike
the gangway a second time bending the actual brow itself that the
passengers walk on board on.
We cancelled all our other sailings for the afternoon and the
Hebridean Isles, another Calmac ferry is making her way down here
tonight from Stornoway to pick up our service in the morning.
A surveyor from Lloyds has been on board and we appear to be OK to
sail on the late night run. Tomorrow the MCA, Company men and repair
people are turning up to look at what needs to be done and ask
questions no doubt. Sometimes being a junior officer has its merits.

More fun pics.

Gender machine

I think it's quite funny.

Birthday boy.

Another year older today, I celebrate the day with the Queen who came to the throne some 60 years ago on the death of her father King George VI.  He unfortunately died at the relatively early age of 56 which coincidentally is the same as I have attained today.  My Mum assures me that he was a heavy smoker.

Thanks to Julie for her great presents, she is very perceptive and my subtle hints were clearly noted.  The blue foam Muggi holds 4 mugs snugly, keeping them warm and upright when we are sailing along.  The AeroPress is apparently the ultimate coffee maker being a rather ingenious way of pushing water through coffee grounds and into the waiting mug.  If you care to go to AeroPress you can see the details. 

The long way home

Some of my regular readers may recall that on the advice of a friend I diverted my route to Greenock to go via the Erskine Bridge, to avoid roadworks at the airport.  Unfortunately due to two other roadworks encountered around the bridge I ended up going completely out of my way and ended up being diverted via the airport and twenty minutes late. Today's experience turned out to be similar.

My last day on board and heading back home to Glasgow, one of my shipmates suggested that I accompany him in his car as company for the trip.  I happily accepted and then slightly regretted it when we were on our way as rather than dropping me off near the flat, like the bus, he said he would drop me off on the South side near Ibrox Underground and I could get the tube back.  No matter it was a pleasant journey back in the glorious sunshine and we arrived in good time at Ibrox, I considered that I might see the bus going past on my way back to the flat.  I bid my farewells and boarded a tube train for the short,  4 stops 5 minutes, trip back.  The tube train left Govan and headed down under the River Clyde when we stopped at the bottom of the slope, as I was later to find this is called the "Sump".  Nothing much happened and minutes went by until a very large man in a reflective waistcoat, who we later found out was Joe the driver (see pic.) , came out of the cab and announced that "it had chucked it!"  For those of you out with Glasgow this translates as " the train has been subject to a serious mechanical failure".

Not much more information was forthcoming from Joe and the lady opposite became concerned about our proximity to the River Clyde directly above our heads.  I assured her that it seemed really unlikely that we would drown but she didn't seem comforted, then a male passenger started to get unsettled that another train would come down the tunnel and run into us.  Fortunately at this point an off duty employee of the underground, who was travelling as a passenger, came into the carriage and assured him that couldn't happen.  I was reminded of the programme from last night about the sinking of the Concordia when the stewardess was telling the passengers that everything was under control and that they should return to their cabins. Though today I would have had more confidence in Captain Schettino than Joe who was now going up and down the carriages looking more concerned at each pass. 

As there was no noise we could overhear Joe speaking to the Controller, that it had definitely "chucked it" and we were going to try going backwards up the hill to return to Govan.  We started off really slowly and got slower and slower until we stopped, then shortly afterwards the lights all went out.  This as we found out, was to allow maintenance personnel to walk down the tunnel with the live rail disconnected.  The emergency lighting had then come on and more time past until Joe announced we were going to go back down the hill to the "Sump" and get a good run at getting into the station.  Some of the passengers were getting a tad agitated as we could see the lights of the station up ahead but we weren't allowed to walk out on the track and get out, and I don't believe that anyone really felt that going back down the track with the train and having a run at it was a brilliant idea.

Upshot of all this was that we didn't go back down to the sump for a slingshot run, the engineers that turned up seemed to know how to use a big screwdriver to override something and we set off to Govan station at a fair old lick.  We were duly decanted onto the station and I caught a train round the long way back to the West End, a mere hour and a half later than the bus!

Of interest was the reaction of my fellow passengers to the event.  Without sufficient information from an authoritative source people will fill in the gaps and unfortunately that usually means that they will be imagining the worst case scenario. Keep your customers informed with accurate and frequent announcements when things start to go all wrong.