Scottish West Coast News

Scotland based MacDuff Ship Design reports it has had another busy summer and autumn with the delivery of a number of new vessels, work continuing on existing contracts and several new design contracts won. Alongside this has seen the continuation of the companies bureau work in naval architectural consultancy and the steady expansion of MacDuff Marine Surveyors. A new 25.5m Aquaculture Support Vessel has entered service on the West Coast of Scotland having been delivered in September 2017 to owners Inverlussa Marine Services.

A major recovery operation has been launched to recover a leaking cargo ship which ran aground on Scotland's west coast. Salvage vessels were called to Kilchoan near Ardnamurchan Point after the Lysblink Seaways became stranded at around 2am on Wednesday. No one was injured in the stranding, but oil had begun to leak from the Seaways. The DFDS general cargo ship that ran aground off Scotland has self-refloated, the UK Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) said. “Shortly before 9pm on Thursday the grounded vessel Lysblink Seaways self-floated from the foreshore at Kilchoan,” it confirmed. A team from Svitzer Salvage is currently on board the vessel conducting a detailed damage assessment and two tugs are at the scene to support the salvage operation, MCA said.

This weekend saw Alnmaritec Ltd hand over the latest of its Wave Worker class of vessels - the ‘Eileen Louise’ - to one of Scotland’s leading live mussel suppliers. Designed and built in just 9 months at the Alnmaritec facility in Blyth, the boat is expected to provide client Hebridean Mussels Ltd with many years of service. Cree Mackenzie, owner of Hebridean Mussels commented.”We were extremely impressed when we first stepped aboard her for the sea trials, It was clear that the Alnmaritec project team went a great deal longer than the extra mile.