The Preferred Option
Strategic Approach
The Fair Isle Outline Business Case preferred option is to progress with a Ro-Ro solution for Fair Isle with the retention of an island-based vessel and crew. To de-risk the adoption of an island-based option, contingency and long-term crewing arrangements must be developed between the Council and the Fair Isle community to ensure a clear succession plan for crewing the vessel.
Vessel
The preferred option for a replacement vessel is a larger, faster monohull vessel built to modern standards. This new vessel is to be coded as a ’Workboat’, limiting the number of passengers to 12. The vessel design will be focused on providing improved passenger comfort and seakeeping, therefore improved reliability.
The principle benefits of the preferred option are summarised as follows:
- A faster vessel with a modern hull form will offer reduced crossing times, whilst the adoption of Ro-Ro would also reduce turnaround times in port. The combined benefit of these two factors is that a sailing could be operated within a shorter weather window than at present, potentially allowing more sailings to run to timetable, more sailings to be operated overall and for an increase in the number of timetabled connections by 1-2 per week.
- It is also anticipated that a new vessel built to modern standards would enhance passenger comfort and seakeeping and improve service reliability.
- The proposed new vessel will have a greater carrying capacity, thus reducing the number of capacity constrained sailings, a key issue given the infrequency of the current service.
- The adoption of Ro-Ro will remove the significant restrictions imposed by weight-limited, crane-based cargo handling. A new Ro-Ro vessel will be able to carry heavier loads, including plant, thus reducing the cost and inconvenience of chartering vessels for what would be routine shipments elsewhere in Scotland. This will strengthen the Fair Isle supplychain and enhance the productivity of the Fair Isle economy.
- A Ro-Ro vessel will also address the significant physical accessibility barriers associated with the current vessel through allowing passengers step-free access over the linkspan.
Whilst a preferred vessel is not specified in the business case process, it was necessary to provide a high-level design vessel as the basis for scoping out the associated infrastructure works. The Norwegian designed and built MD240 is an appropriate high-level design vessel for this stage of the Outline Business Case. This vessel is not normally configured as linkspan compatible and is normally built with two cranes - it is intended that a new vessel would have one crane for loading goods into a cargo hold building in flexibility of operation during any periods of linkspan maintenance etc.
Ship-to-Shore Interface
The preferred option is to provide a linkspan at both Fair Isle and Grutness. It is anticipated that there will be two small ‘Type A' linkspan decks available for use at Fair Isle and Grutness as can be found across the wider Shetland Inter-Island Ferry Network.
This option includes an upgrade to the current overnight berthing arrangement at Fair Isle for the new vessel. The 'noust' will be extended and will be accompanied by the provision of a new winch, winch house and cradle. The alignment of the finger pier, slipway and rails will be confirmed at detailed design stage to minimise the period of outage of ferry services during construction.
Benefits Realisation
A ‘benefits realisation framework’ has been developed and confirms that the preferred option makes the most significant contribution towards the four study ‘aims’ agreed at Strategic Business Case stage (Shetland Inter-Islands Transport Study), namely:
- The inter-island transport network should support and promote inclusive economic growth.
- The inter-island transport network should support improved access to opportunities and services on mainland Shetland, including employment, health, education and personal services.
- The inter-island transport network should promote population retention, a balanced island demographic and capacity within the local community.
- The inter-island transport network should support enhanced productivity and economic connectivity within the Shetland Islands.