Broken away

The bulk of the repairs to our turbo chargers were completed overnight so we headed out on trials this morning, nice day for it too.  Initially we headed for Ardrossan to drop off the Troon pilot and then we headed south past Ailsa Craig and back. So far so good, we are back in Troon tonight as the weather forecast, again, is looking pretty grim overnight which makes Ardrossan difficult.  More trials tomorrow and then all being well into service on Thursday.  Bit scary as we haven't loaded vehicles for weeks.

On the passage to nowhere

I joined my ferry last week in Troon, which is a first.  We were tied up on the rather grandly named Portland Wharf but those of you who have sailed in here will probably know it better as the timber berth right beside the marina.  

I left the ship in dry dock back in mid January and a week or so later she went back into service with her new turbo blowers in place.  Unfortunately, after a couple of days cracks in the piping taking the exhaust to the blowers appeared and the ship was taken out of service to Troon to be repaired by MAN, who fitted the blowers, with able assistance from Garvel dry dock personnel.

Repairs complete we headed off out on trials on Thursday, lovely day sunny and a gentle breeze.  We headed south towards Ayr to drop off the Troon pilot when the fire alarm went off and this was the same problem with exhaust fumes leaking into the engine room.  We turned round, fortunately the pilot was still on board and returned to Troon.  A German engineer was flown over and our original one returned and along with Garvel and others they have been working 24/7 to find a solution.

Meantime as you'll be aware the wind and the rain have been going at it, but this is a wonderfully sheltered berth and I doubt that we would have been running anyway.