Over the past few days we have received several calls with regards to Torbays new Fast Ferry. We would like to confirm that we are not the company behind it. One question we keep being asked is why are they charging so much when they are subsidised by Torbay Council. We understand that the fare is £6 return and we cant understand either why they are unable to match our price of £1. We and Western Lady whom currently operate the service (March to 31st October) manage to without a £600,000+ tax payers subsidy from the Council on top of a huge marketing budget and secondary support. We also have to pay business rates to the Council for our booking offices in Torquay and Brixham too, the new Irish company have none so pay nothing. Another question asked is - how long will it take to cross the bay and what happened to the Fast Ferry, it doesnt seem fast. We can confirm it takes them longer to cross the bay than the Fairmile. We thought it was going to be in 15 minutes. Its now, according to their timetable, 25 minutes. It would seem this is a replication of problems which the Irish Company had with their other subsidised service in Ireland. One further question is; why didnt your company go for the subsidy - The answer to that one is simple. The service is not viable and due to the fact that we live locally, have five other local businesses which all rely on local people we did not want to be seen to fail after taking subsidies for a service we could not deliver on and make self sustainable. The service will only work while the subsidy is there. After that period, whoever is running will in our opinion have to pull out - sell the asset off (thats the ferry weve all just purchased) or see it sail off into the sunset or back to Ireland perhaps. We are not serial subsidy hunters and we are not willing to damage our reputation or that of our business as we have to live here and actually have pride in what we do and a conscience. Until 4 years ago Fairmile and Riviera Belle, plus both Western Lady boats had Class 6a Licenses and could operate all year round, but chose not to as there was not a business case to do so, especially in the bad weather and with lack of tourists (they would be needed to subsidise the winter service without the council subsidy). Fairmile has been operating in the Bay for nearly 70 years - even in the hey day she never ran a winter service - I think that says it all. We wish the new ferry service all the luck in the world in the winter gales, trying to ensure they do not break their licensing conditions of more than moderate rolling and pitching or the conditions of the subsidy in regards to cancelations, timekeeping and disruption. So we have no more information to give with regards to the Irish Company running the ferry other than what we have been able to find here; forargyll/2012/09/rmt-and-calmac-ferries-staff-should-look-at-result-of-2008-rathlin-island-contract-change/ https://flickr/photos/28006678@N03/ https://flickr/photos/37090633@N05/ nalil.blogspot.co.uk scroll to bottom - take a look - then click older posts Are we worried as a local family business. Well the answer is in our picture… nearly 80 years and still going. Even if we are not running the Fairmile she will still be here and she will continue to be the ship we all know, treasure and love. She has withstood a war, major competition, seen many companies and boats come and go - can anything match her? Not that we know of! Theres room for the old and the new! Happy sailing!
Posted on: Thu, 20 Nov 2014 08:39:31 +0000
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