If you were the Scottish government/transport Scotland, what would your strategy for the internal ferry network be?

[Cloud Strife]

Is Scrabster Harbour big enough to support the Shetland ferries in a short/long sailing schedule? It's about 1/3 shorter to sail Lerwick to Scrabster than Lerwick to Aberdeen which might be enough to make two sailings a day possible.

It should be, as the Norrona called there, and Hjaltland/Hrossey are smaller. There's a freight yard that could be used for additional marshalling capacity if needed as well, and the existing marshalling area could be expanded quite easily as well. The question is whether there's any demand for a Scrabster run, especially from tourists.

 

[najaB]

The question is whether there's any demand for a Scrabster run, especially from tourists.

I could see a morning sailing to Scrabster/afternoon return to Lerwick being useful for people who want to do a tour of the Highlands and Islands. Might even be possible to line up with the train service for backpackers/cyclists.

 

[Cloud Strife]

I could see a morning sailing to Scrabster/afternoon return to Lerwick being useful for people who want to do a tour of the Highlands and Islands. Might even be possible to line up with the train service for backpackers/cyclists.

Looking now, it seems you could do something like this:

Aberdeen: 19:00
Lerwick arrival: 07:00
Lerwick departure: 07:45
Scrabster arrival: 14:45
Scrabster departure: 15:30 (to tie in with the train)
Lerwick arrival: 22:30
Lerwick departure: 23:15
Aberdeen: 09:15

The problem is that you'd ideally want to be in Aberdeen to connect with the London train, so an earlier arrival would be desirable. It might be possible to get the Thurso train to arrive earlier, so the boat could depart earlier from Lerwick in the morning.

I think it is possible, but freight might be an issue, especially as the current timings ensure a 11 hour rest on the ferry for drivers.

 

[Blindtraveler]

The two larger vessels are capable of serving scrabster as both have done so in the past, however I don't think the locals would be too impressed and whilst you could market the scrabs to sailing heavily a tourists possibly even with higher non-subsidized fairs the demand is for Aberdeen. The in-service speed over the two larger boats is 24 knots and they generally operate a good bit below this to maintain the more sociable arrival times and save a bit of fuel, but in times of disruption in the past a two vessel service for Shetland has been operated with a broadly similar timetable maintained, I think they put the arrival time in Shetland forward by 30 minutes and the Aberdeen day service departed again at 9:00 a.m. with crew servicing cabins etc during the voyage meaning that a early evening arrival in Aberdeen was possible and a rapid turnaround for Shetland or indeed for Shetland via orchney was also doable. It would require renegotiation of the contract and a willingness from the Scottish government in particular to stump up the extra money required for both fuel and extra querying of vessels but it would quite easily pay for itself for the heavy tourist months of roughly the end of may till roughly the middle of September.

 

[najaB]

The two larger vessels are capable of serving scrabster as both have done so in the past, however I don't think the locals would be too impressed and whilst you could market the scrabs to sailing heavily a tourists possibly even with higher non-subsidized fairs the demand is for Aberdeen.

The demand is to Aberdeen because that's where the ferries go currently. In the summer months it would be quite feasible to shift some of that demand to Scrabster with John-o-Groats being so close, a lot of the tourist market could be encouraged to go that way and then drive down either direct down the A9 to Aberdeen or take a lazy tour via Ullapool.

 

[Blindtraveler]

With respect, I do have a couple of people I mean contact with up in Shetland and they maintain that in the summer months regardless of tourist traffic locals and freight can quite easily fill the boat without trying so demand to Aberdeen is clearly where it must go with any major expansion of service, what you could however do to test the water in advance of this is trial a two or three times a week scrabster sailing. The connection with London issue mentioned on the second part of that rotation above could also be solved by a guaranteed docking in Aberdeen by 9:00 a.m. enableing connection with the nine 52 London service which is generally cheaper anyway so it wouldn't break that connection to badly.

I do sincerely hope however that the views of Orkney and Shetland locals are taken into account and that a decent number of cabins, 50-plus are installed on the replacement freight vessels so that locals can sail as well as truck drivers etc