Shipbuilding shambles

I don't normally do selfies but Photos just offered me this memory from this day in 2017. Anyway it's not a selfie. My arms aren't that long.

This is a visit to Ferguson's shipyard when I was chairing the Highland Council Harbours Board. Fun with 108 harbours in an area the size of Belgium. We were in Glasgow for a progress meeting on the new ferry commissioned for the Uig-North Uist-Harris triangle. Roughly twice the size of the current ferry, meaning we had to rebuild much of the harbour to take it. Building the ship was going full steam, and I wanted clarity on some detail about what we needed to fit it all in.

Next day, the meeting with the commissioning agency across the road. I found the shipyard had been told to get on with building the ship, but the people commissioning it had nowhere finished designing it. As a project manager to trade I confess I banged the table. They were heading for disaster. It would end in tears. Etcetera. Over lunch afterwards I took aside the civil servant overseeing this for the Scottish Government and said, look ******, you've got to tell the Minister it's going pear shaped. No, he said, it would be too embarrassing.

Not too many years down the line, and millions spent unbuilding and rebuilding, Uncle Graham's wise words came true, the shipyard went bust and had to be nationalised to save it, and so far as I know the real culprits got off scot free.

If you're running a government you have to be able to trust your civil servants. Alas, you can't always do that.

Extras by the way. Those wooden blocks on the green jacks. When they launch a ship you will see men under the hull knocking wooden blocks out so it can slide down the slipway. Those are some of them.