The full story can be read in The Scotsman!

Fascinating: commissioning ships "on spec" for a new service seems a very high risk proposition in the current economic climate, especially to an island that was feeling the economic chill before the current recession struck (in June 2008 a shockingly high proportion of all property on the island appeared to be for sale judging from the estate agents boards).

And it begs the obvious question of how the new ships will operate, in particular where they will load and unload. I can't see operating from the linkspans currently used by CalMac being a practical proposition (setting aside the question, to which I don't have an answer, about who owns them), which means that either new linkspans or new slipways will need to be built: which in turn problably means as much investment again as in the ships themselves.

Which all begs the question of what really lies behind this announcement given the wider tendering issues etc.