Harbour News 27th March – 16th April (35 arrivals)

Whitefish totalled 4200 boxes from 10 Anglo Spanish vessels, 9 long-liners and 1 gill netter. Fishing remains steady for the Anglo fleet with all vessels reporting good returns for their efforts. Our top landers, The Ayr Queen and Sylvanna, have returned home for their annual spring break. The Scottish fleet continue to fish for monks and ling on the shelf edge; unfortunately quota restriction and fuel prices forced the vessels to land elsewhere.
The shellfish sector was busy with 14 vessels landing a mixture of prawns and crabs. Once again catches are reasonable but prices remain low for these top quality species.

The non fishing sector saw 11 vessels visit the harbour for a variety of reasons. The pelagic trawler Altaire demobbed after a Marine Scotland mackerel survey; the fishfarm vessels Helen Burnie, Gerasaele, Ronja Skye and Norholm called in for crew change, repairs, supplies and 80,000 smolts respectively; the survey vessel Seabeam called in for fuel; the sonar vessel Marine Survey and support barge Tie Venture conducted a seabed survey in preparation for some maintenance dredging at the ferry berth; the luxury cruise ship Hebridean Princess spent the night alongside with passengers taking a trip to Corrieshalloch Gorge and finally the navy support ships Smit Yare and Smit Merion have been deployed as part of a joint forces NATO exercise in the Minches.

Final plans for the new ferry currently being built in Germany for the Ullapool – Stornoway route have been agreed and as reported in last week’s UN the new ship will be called MV Loch Seaforth. At 116m in length and a build cost of £42M, the new ship will be the biggest vessel to operate in the lifeline ferry service fleet. Engineering consultants Wallace Stone continue to progress detailed designs for the 35m pier extension on behalf of UHT and hope to go out to tender in the next few months.

Many thanks to all those who applied for the Harbour Assistant vacancy – the position has now been filled.

Our sail trainees continued their fund-raising efforts towards their participation in the 2013 Tall Ships race from Denmark to Finland. This time, Scoraig inhabitants were treated to delicious range-baked pizza (salad and brownies thrown in for free) and a great sun-filled day was had by our sail trainee Jessica, her family and friends, delivering pizza to the generous (and lucky) people of Scoraig. Sincere thanks to everyone involved; a further £220 goes into the sail trainee fund.

Wylde Swan is coming to town in August for another series of fun-filled adventure voyages. You can take your pick of trips to remote Scottish islands including St Kilda, Taransay, Shiants, Rona, Westray, Fair Isle. Full itinerary details and costs of each adventure can be found on the harbour’s new website www.ullapool-harbour.co.uk.