The oil delivery shambles continues.

The oil tanker Keewhit might just get to make a delivery on March 6th  - weather permitting - almost 4 months since the last delivery. Since then oil has been tankered in by road and Calmac ferry (5p a litre more expensively). Fortunately the extra winter ferries that Calmac were obliged to put in to service following lobbying by the SWA have been able to handle the extra traffic.

“Unfortunately due to the prevailing weather conditions, the Keewhit could not be committed to load for Bruichladdich early this week. Due to load berth congestion it will not be possible to load before Wednesday night/Thursday morning and this timing does not fit in with the small potential weather window (Thursday morning) at Islay.

Due to receding tides and further poor weather forecasts we do not have a window of opportunity to load this cargo before 4th March”.

This one communication encapsulates the entire problem which of course any one with  half an iota of commonsense could foresee, but not  the council Dimwhit who planned the pier: weather conditions (er, winter on the Atlantic ocean?);  A pier built exclusively for one vessel (the pier is too shallow for any other);  wrong tides (too shallow at the pier); too exposed (open to prevailing weather so unusable in usual winter storms).