Still loch waters run deep

For most people in the world, the freight business has largely been unseen and unknown, as it happens so far from their own experience. And up in the still waters of the Scottish lochs, the giant containerships and quay cranes that are the engine of global trade are another world away. 

Or they were, until late last year, when Maersk brought six of its deepsea containerships to lay-up in the serene setting of Loch Striven. 

The old adage that “still waters run deep” was never more true than during the subsequent furore created by Loch Striven’s waterside residents and those in the nearby quaint town of Rothesay, on the picturesque Inner Hebridean island of Bute. 

With seemingly little in the way of consultation with locals, last summer the huge vessels began to arrive, placed there by the local statutory harbour authority, Glasgow port operator Clydeport, which is owned by port of Liverpool owner Peel Ports. 

What happened next is the subject of some debate, but the general consensus is that tempers boiled as letters of protest to Clydeport were routinely ignored, as were local newspaper reporters seeking comment from the company, which seemed to have employed a PR company and instructed it to say nothing. 

In this vacuum of reasoned debate, local internet forums bulged with vitriolic rants, gradually reaching fever pitch around autumn, when Maersk began what can only be described as a charm offensive. The line invited local residents on a tour of a ship, which culminated in dinner with the captain and all the trimmings that make landlubbers feel special when they come aboard a sea-going vessel. 

By this time there had been developments on other fronts. BBC Scotland, hunting for a suitable location to film Mission:2110, a follow-up to a highly successful children’s game show called Raven, approached Maersk to see if it could film in a cargo hold of one of the ships. 

“Initially I was reluctant,” says Tony Greener, technical director of Maersk Line UK, “but it’s worked out fine.” 

Details of the programme are currently embargoed, but the series is set in a world that has been taken over by robots. Contestants aged between 12 and 14 compete in a series of tasks that makes Cheggers Plays Pop distinctly passé. But then, programme-makers in its day didn’t have the opportunity to film in giant industrial settings. 

Much of the action takes place in an empty cargo hold, but one bridge has been converted into a “mad scientist’s laboratory”, and other scenes were shot in an engine room and on deck. 

The Maersk ships disappear as the mist rolls in on the loch. Click image to enlarge

The ships themselves – bar the 1985-built, US-flagged Sealand Performance – are classic victims of the dynamics of this particular recession. The five B-class vessels – Maersk Baltimore, Maersk Beaumont, Maersk Bentonville, Maersk Boston and Maersk Brooklyn – were delivered to the line between 2006 and 2007, have a capacity of 4,200teu and are designed for an optimum speed of just under 30 knots. 

They were originally intended to operate between China and the US east coast, through the Panama Canal, on a high-speed string serving the growing retail distribution hubs around Savannah and APM Terminals’ newly built, state-of-the-art container facility at Portsmouth, near Hampton Roads. However, shortly after their delivery, oil prices rose way beyond the economic viability of the vessels. 

“When the vessels were conceived, oil was around US$300 per tonne, and when they were delivered it was up to $700 per tonne,” says Greener, “and a ship running at 28 knots will burn a lot of money.” 

At the same time, recession and declining volumes began to rear their respective heads, and after a while operating on some other services, the decision was made to lay-up the ships. 

“The trouble is that if we ran them at conventional speeds, they are fairly inefficient from a hull perspective, and there’s very little we can do about that,” says Greener. And in today’s world of super slow-steaming there is no place for them. 

He adds: “There are options as to what we could do with them next – a working group is looking at re-modelling possibilities, such as shortening them and re-doing the hull so that we don’t lose too much carrying capacity.” 

The line currently thinks, and has told Loch Striven’s local residents, that the ships will be laid-up until at least the end of this year. Beyond that, it is very difficult to make predictions. 

The charismatic Captain Johnstone

However, the arrival of the BBC, along with charismatic dinner companion Captain David Johnstone – himself a Scot, with the knack of making friends wherever he goes – to look after the ships, has considerably diffused the tension with the local community. If anything, the six great hulks sitting in the middle of the loch, which sometimes disappear when the mist closes in, have provided a much-needed boost to a local economy enduring the same problems as everywhere else in the UK. 

Hotels and boarding houses have seen an upsurge in business with the coming and going of visitors to the ships – be they Maersk crew, technical staff such as the Newcastle-based Greener, BBC film crew or visiting freight journalists. Local grocers are supplying those on the ships with victuals, and even employment opportunities have sprung up. 

“The cook’s contract is due to end shortly, and he’s got a pretty important job because he feeds not only the ships’ crew, but also all the BBC people,” says Greener. “We can’t re-employ him, because he’ll be exposed to UK tax, so I’ve hired a guy from the island who’s been a ship’s cook before. All the guys round here have experience on ships because of the fishing business.” 

In a further twist, a Maersk spokesperson tells IFW that the fee the line is receiving from the BBC – unfortunately undisclosed – will fund some local community projects. 

It is currently assessing proposals, but one certainly fires the imagination: Loch Striven was where Dambuster pioneer Barnes Wallis tested his prototype bouncing bombs for the legendary wartime air raid. There are a considerable number of them on the loch bed which didn’t, er, bounce. The project will see some of them raised and a bouncing bomb museum created. 

Notwithstanding, these remain testing times for everyone. There is low hum from the ships’ generators audible on shore, and not everyone in the local community has been charmed out of their opposition. Yet the goodwill that does exist between the world’s biggest shipping line and its new neighbours is a long way away from the rancour that characterised last year.