Coruisk at Craignure, 5 June 2016

Coruisk

IMO 9274836
Built 2003, Appledore Shipbuilders Bideford, United Kingdom
Tonnage 1 559 GT
Length 65,00 m
Width 14,00 m
Draught 3,05 m
249 passengers
40 cars
2 MaK diesels, combined 2 280 kW
2 azimuthing pods
Speed 14 knots

The Coruisk (or Coir' Uisg' in Scots Gaelic) was conceived as a "sheltered waters vessel" for Caledonian MacBrayne, for service on the Mallaig-Armadale route during the summer and as a relief vessel during the winters. It was conceived with an unusual construction, resembling a double-ended ferry but with a a dedicated bow and stern, as well as a side ramp. Built by Appledore in Bideford, England, the ship was delivered in August 2003 and entered service on the Mallaig-Armadale -route... where it suffered a series of mishaps, culminating in a computer error resulting in a serious grounding after just a week in service. The ship was repaired and partially rebuilt at Glasgow, then re-entered service on the Gourock-Dunoon -service, deputising for the ship normally in this service. This was another failure, as it was discovered the Coruisk could not berth at Dunoon at all states of tide. Subsequently modifications were carried out and after the initial mishaps, the ships appears to have performed admirably.

A big change for the ship came in 2016, when Caledonian MacBrayne decided to move it to the Oban-Craignure route for the summer season, sailing alongside the Isle of Mull. This resulted in some criticism, as the Coruisk's replacement on Mallaig-Armadale proved less than suitable (and certainly the Coruisk is a poor running mate for the Isle of Mull as far as passenger facilities are concerned). Even so, Caledonian MacBrayne apparently plan to retain the arrangement for the coming years, with the Coruisk thus sailing Oban-Craignure during the summers and as a relief ship on Wemyss Bay-Rothesay during the winters.

The photos below show the Coruisk arriving at Craignure on 5 June 2016. As per the usual, click on an image to see it in larger size.

The ship does look very odd.

Scotland did have a tendency to be quite photogenic during my visit.

Here you can quite nicely see the different ship of the bow and stern - while at first the ship looks like a double-ender, it isn't.

And then we got some nice foreground crap...

...which only got better!

Next time: I think I will finally fullfill my plan of pairing exterior and interior entries of CalMac ships, so next time we'll look at Coruisk interiors (the little that there is).