'Machinery failure' being looked at as Pentalina remains out of action until June 6
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
The Pentalina ferry is still in dry dock in England and will remain out of service until next Tuesday at the earliest, it has been announced.
Pentland Ferries issued a further apology to passengers after confirming that the suspension of sailings on its Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope route will continue up to and including June 6.
The Pentalina has been sidelined since grounding in Orkney at the end of last month. The Marine Accident Investigation Branch (MAIB) is looking at "machinery failure" as part of its investigation into the incident.
Pentland Ferries announced that the vessel remains in dry dock in Birkenhead on Merseyside, "undergoing further investigation and repair".
The company says all booked passengers are being contacted directly.
Pentland Ferries' managing director Helen Inkster said: “Again, we apologise to our customers and would like to assure them that everything we can do will be done to resume service as quickly as possible. In the meantime, we are contacting all booked passengers directly and working closely with NorthLink Ferries to minimise disruption.”
The latest update from Pentland Ferries followed an earlier announcement that sailings were cancelled up to and including May 26.
Rival firm NorthLink has introduced additional services on its Stromness/Scrabster route “to help bolster the travel link between Orkney and the Scottish mainland”.
The Pentalina went aground on April 29 close to St Margaret’s Hope, just three days after resuming service on the route as its replacement, Alfred, started a nine-month charter with CalMac.
The Pentalina had 60 passengers on board at the time of the incident. Nobody was injured.
The vessel was issued with a safety certificate following surveys on April 18 and returned to the Pentland Firth route on April 26, after the Alfred had been loaned to CalMac in a £9 million deal to serve the Clyde and Hebrides network. The £14m Alfred had replaced the Pentalina on the Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope route in 2019.
The Pentalina incident came less than a year after the Alfred ran aground on the uninhabited island of Swona in July 2022, with 84 passengers and 13 crew on board.
The Pentalina and Alfred groundings are among a total of 37 incidents under investigation by MAIB.
In the case of the Pentalina, the MAIB website lists the accident/incident type as "machinery failure and subsequent grounding of a UK-registered ro-ro passenger ferry at St Margaret’s Hope, South Ronaldsay".
A spokesman said there was nothing to add beyond the details given on the website.
Stuart Garrett, Serco’s managing director for NorthLink Ferries, said recently he hoped the company's additional sailings would help maintain access between Orkney and the Scottish mainland.
In the immediate aftermath of the Pentalina grounding, Orkney council leader James Stockan called for assurances that ferry services "are safe and reliable”.
Councillor Stockan said at the time: “There are a number of questions that need to be answered, and that is a call coming not just from myself but from our wider community and many of the agencies and stakeholders involved. How can we be assured that ferry services across the firth are safe and reliable?
“At this point we really have no idea how long the Pentalina may be out of action. Wider questions also need to be asked around why we’ve ended up in the position of one of our ferries being taken away from our community to plug a gap elsewhere."
