The North Boat (Northlink ferries)

[Sheltieman]

Hey in the good old days of the St Clair - you could pretty sloshed in da crew bar! along with the crew - times indeed have changed.

[Guest Anonymous]

ken a couple of folk that got handcuffed to the car deck on the clair, not banned from traveling just restrained when it was appropriate, why can't we take a few steps back for the better.

[david]

Being hand cuffed on a boat reminds me of that scene in Titanic where the water is rising and Kate Winslet has to use an axe.

 

The Norrona has a prison cell on board. Could never work out if it was for rowdy passengers or for transporting prisoners.

[Guest SJP17]

The main complaint i have about the boat is the temperature in the reclining seat area , its bloody freezing at night and unless you have a sleeping bag or a good thick blanket dont expect to get much sleep , i actually went down and spoke to the guy on the desk about it and he just shrugged his shoulders and said , "take a sleeping bag next time pal" , i then asked for a blanket , which he replied "cannae ge you one thier for the cabins" ! , poor service i would say , and unless you have a cabin they dont really seem to care for your welfare !

[JustMe]

Well Northlinks website says

Reclining chairs

For passengers choosing to travel without overnight accommodation, the ticket price can include access to our recliner lounge. Please book seats with your travel. Blankets and pillows can be hired from the Northern Isles Shop on board, for £3 with a £5 deposit.

so I guess you just have to organise a blanket before the shop closes.......or take a sleeping bag.

[Guest SJP17]

So it seems , the shop was closed and the guy never mentioned anything about hiring blankets or pillows ,

 

Still think they could turn up the heating a bit

[mhutch]

choosing to travel without overnight accommodation

 

quite a lot of folk cant afford the overnight accomodation and quite a lot of folk wont sleep sitting up, which makes the subsidised basic fare unappealing and a bit of an ordeal, or is that the idea ?

[shetlandpeat]

They have a secure place for unruly folk, we moved on from lashing people to the bulkheads.

[man of kent]

memory always plays trick hot summers and snowy winters. im sure that there were great times on the old boat but i also bet there were drunks and bad crossings to.

 

Strangely enough since I actually worked on the 'Old Boat' - I dont suppose the old boat you are referring to is the Old Boat from 1970-72 I think I know how things were having made the trip a couple of hundred times. I dont remember too many drunks, there were a few over that time, and sometimes it was the same people. I did say, it was a little bit of Shetland before you got there. Bad crossings, longest was 2 days from memory, not a problem if your a crew member. Hot summers, never, but we could take our jackets off, snowy winters, yep, that's why we all had proper wooden sledges. not the plastic crap you get down this way.

[Tomblands]

On the topic of rowdy passengers, I had the 'pleasure' of some rowdier passengers in the Mid Ships Bar. I wasn't attempting to sleep, I had no cabin and barely sleep on the boat in the best of conditions, so I was sitting up until I more or less fell over.

 

Anyway, they were the only people I've ever seen have drink taken off them. They appeared to have a vinegar fight on the way to the smoking area at one point. Music was being played over a set of mini speakers quite loudly, and being sung loudly (and wrong I may add..AC/DC 'All Night Long'...what exactly are "Mountain Thighs"...).

 

At 3am, when the increasingly aggressive and competitive push up competition was at it's height, one woman shouted through from the stairway that she was trying to sleep. "what do you expect, it's a f****** bar love".

 

I was pretty glad I didn't have a cabin that night, I could have been in with one of those morons.

[Mutton]

So last night folk had to cancel hospital appointments in Aberdeen and delay holidays at considerable expense in the interests in comfort and safety. Yet Northlink deemed that it was safe enough for the freight ship to leave Lerewick which arrived safely in Aberdeen 0700 this morning.

 

Is this because it is worth sinking a freight ship or losing a freight seaman overboard after slipping through the railings? Or is it because Northlink want to cut some costs? Or is it because the Hjaltland/Hrossay are simply not up to scratch?

[Kavi Ugl]

I totally agree. I just couldn't fathom(no pun intended) how they could sail the Hildasay from Lerwick and send the Hrossey north via Orkney(heading into the winds and seas) while the Hjaltland lay in Lerwick.

 

Maybe it's the fact that the ships have so few cabins which in turn means more people "lying" around in the open areas and exposed to injury.

 

Whatever the case, I've heard first hand today of many people whose holiday plans etc have been thrown into disaray and as was pointed out to me it's the people whose sailing didn't go who get to sail on the next sailing before the people who were actually booked to sail on that date.

[Ghostrider]

I just couldn't fathom(no pun intended) how they could sail the Hildasay from Lerwick and send the Hrossey north via Orkney(heading into the winds and seas) while the Hjaltland lay in Lerwick.

 

Hildasay = no paying passengers = no fitless folk without sea legs falling over, getting broken or scraped/dented and annoying the hell out of No'Link's insurers with claims.

 

Oh, and always keep your boat head up to heavy weather. She may rise and faa a lot, but taking it broadside or on a quarter like it would have been going sooth these last couple of days, she'll wummel and rowl like a cork in a burn.

[suuusssiiieee]

Funny then how many a time even the old Ninian went in a following/quarter sea and still made Aberdeen the next morning - and she was a damn sight smaller than the "kleenex boxes" we have now.

 

Last nights no sail from Lerwick clearly shows that NorthLink have little or no confidence in these vessels sea keeping abilities.

 

I would expect any ship to roll with a beam sea, however these ferries are not (and i don't care what anyone says) suitable for this route, pack them off to the Med where they should be!

 

Whose to say there was not HGV drivers on the Hildasay last night?

 

Maybe yes, maybe no who knows...but if there was don't they class as fare paying passengers?

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

suuusiiieee, have you not just read what ghostrider just said?

 

The boats would easily survive the journey, its the nanny state world of health and safety that has changed the decision to sail or not to sail.

We live in the age of the risk assesment, safety management systems and of course the sue culture.

 

I put it to you that you know nothing of naval architecture , the GM of these vessels or their ability to survive the weather conditions on-route!