MV Lord of the Isles to be temporarily withdrawn from service
MV Lord of the Isles will be withdrawn from service on Tuesday 17 May to allow for essential planned repairs to be carried out to her drencher system. This means that the Mallaig-Lochboisdale service will be suspended for an estimated eight days.
Passengers booked on this route from 17 May are being contacted and space will be offered via Lochmaddy where possible, with lifeline services being prioritised.
As a result, a sailing will operate from Lochboisdale on Tuesday morning and all other Mallaig-Lochboisdale sailings in this period will be cancelled.
Fiona Galbraith, Area Operations Manager for the Hebrides, said: "Every effort will be made to complete this work in the shortest time possible to ensure the disruption of service to our community is minimised. We have explored options to deploy a relief vessel to Lochboisdale for the affected period but unfortunately this is not possible, as all our fleet is operating a timetabled service elsewhere in the network for the summer period.
"I fully understand the impact this will have on our community during this period and would like to reassure everyone that these works are necessary to provide resilience and reliability to MV Lord of the Isles going forward."
Editor Notes:
MV Lord of the Isles has been operating under a Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) approved safety case since the issue with her deck drencher system was identified during her routine overhaul - allowing her to remain in service while all possible options of an in-service repair were explored.
The drencher system is a firefighting safety system serving the car deck area and is required for MCA certification to operate. This planned maintenance is required to ensure this system is operating to its full capability, ensuring continuity of service throughout peak summer.