Published: Wednesday, 3rd February, 2010 11:35am
Historic visit at Largs Pier
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The MV Bute berthed at Largs Pier on left, with Loch Shira arriving alongside.
The Caledonian MacBrayne car ferry Bute carried out successful berthing trials on Sunday morning (31st January) at Largs Pier. The new multi-million pier at Rothesay has developed snags which may mean one of the two Rothesay to Wemyss Bay ferries berthing overnight at a mainland port while remedial work is carried out - thus the reason for the visit.
The Bute, built in Gdansk, Poland becomes the largest ever ferry, 2643 GRT, belonging to Caledonian MacBrayne or their predecessors to call at Largs Pier. The previous CalMac "record holder", CLAYMORE now belongs to Scandinavian interests following spells with Sea Containers and Pentland Ferries.
Bute was under the command of Skelmorlie man Capt. Mark Yeomans (one of her regular Masters).
Bute has an unoffical website www.mvbute.co.uk produced by her crew. Amongst the information in it, besides many photographs, is a history of the building of the ship, and it even has a 'flagged' update banner at the top mentioning the visit to Largs. It was the first 'big boat' call at the recently rebuilt Largs Pier.
Thanks to Gordon Law and Walter Bowie for the above information.
