Clyde Built

Great to see a launch taking place at Ferguson Shipbuilders in Port Glasgow today.

MV Hallaig is the world's first hybrid ferry and the first commercial ship in more than five years to be fully built and delivered on the Clyde. The new ferry has Lithium Ion batteries supplying more than 20 per cent of the energy it needs, hence the 'hybrid' description and those batteries reduce fuel consumption, pollution, and noise, and lead to lower maintenance costs so good for the environment too.

It's also the first of two vessels being built at Ferguson's for Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), following Scottish Government investment to secure 75 jobs, create 100 more, and provide 20 apprenticeships. The first female apprentice was there today.

The Hallaig is also the first of a new Scottish Literary Class, with all new ships in the fleet, including a second hybrid ferry, being named after Scottish literature. This one was named after a poem by Sorley Maclean about an abandoned town on Raasay, and was originally written in Gaelic, and later translated into English by fellow poet, Seamus Heaney. There is also a Scots language version. The poem itself has a Gaelic sense of landscape, in the people, as well as a romantic sense of nature, so two ideas coming together, and in three languages... a good choice of name for a hybrid vessel, and one which will serve the Raasay community as it sails between there and Skye. This is definitely a poem we're going to look at with pupils.

Nicola Sturgeon was there to launch the vessel with a bottle of Talisker whisky from Skye, and as the chaplain said, "Lord of the rolling tides", the gathered crowd, young and old, responded, "Bless this ship".

So say all of us. Great to see a launch on the Clyde again. George Wyllie would have loved it, and it makes it all the more poignant for the youngsters finding out about his work and anticipating the launch of their paper boats.