BRUERNISH is now the oldest unit in the Caledonian MacBrayne fleet and the last ship to have worn the colours of David MacBrayne Ltd. She is one of the six “Small Island Class” ferries ordered in 1972, as KILBRANNAN and MORVERN neared completion – these six to be of slightly greater length, allowing each ferry to carry two additional cars of average size. The names originally proposed were BERNERA, ERISKAY, VATERSAY, SOAY, RAASAY and STAFFA; but all save RAASAY proved to be unavailable and BRUERNISH – one of three completed in 1973 – was duly launched without ceremony on 22^nd March and named after a peninsula on Barra. For a full description of her design and capabilities, see the profile of KILBRANNAN.

She ran trials on 7^th May 1973, after some delay due to a strike, and attained a respectable 8.8 knots. Her spell with a David MacBrayne funnel was brief, for on 17^th May the new CalMac yellow circles and red lions were added. BRUERNISH left the Clyde early on 18^th May duly made her first passenger sailing – from Fishnish to Lochaline – on 19^th May 1973, carrying six or seven cars with comfort, and on several occasions (such as 14^th June, when the relief Craignure ferry, BUTE, suffered a hoist failure and all traffic was diverted by Lochaline) actually squeezed in eight cars.

Making passage in the Crinan Canal

Early in her career with a full complement of passengers

On 14^th October BRUERNISH also made her first visit to Lismore – conveying a load of cattle to Oban, where they trotted off by the new linkspan. But her sojourn on the new Sound of Mull crossing was brief – she was displaced by her younger sister COLL – and thereafter sank into the burdened round of relief duties, undertaking the Tobermory-Mingary service from 19^th December, and then relieving briefly at Lochaline, Lismore etc. BRUERNISH did in fact spend most of her career as a spare vessel and is easily the most widely travelled of the Small Island Class ferries, granted abundant opportunity to show off the versatility of her design.

For most of the Seventies she wandered about relieving her expanding list of sisters and was generally rostered as spare/stand-by vessel in late summer. She spent two winters in that capacity at Kyleakin and, when work began on new terminals at Iona and Fionnphort in the late Seventies, BRUERNISH became the first MacBrayne ship for very many years to use the pier at Bunessan, lying there when she was not busy ferrying contractors' materials. In late 1976, and in two other spells until summer 1978, she was chartered for a period to Howard Doris Ltd., running a Kyle of Lochalsh-Toscaig service for construction workers. This ended on 6^th May 1978 with the completion of that particular oil rig. On other occasions she has sailed to such remote and roadless occasions as Inverie on Lochnevis, unloading materials on the beach.

The only station with which BRUERNISH became identified for many years was the service to Gigha. The Company had actually briefly abandoned the island with the conversion of ARRAN to end-loading in the winter of 1972/73. With the commissioning of the PIONEER in August 1974, calls at Gigha resumed, the new ferry unloading goods and vehicles by crane. This was never a satisfactory solution and when IONA replaced PIONEER in February 1979 her deep draught precluded service to Gigha.

So the BRUERNISH was draughted in and on 5^th February began a regular Kennacraig - Gigha roster; a crane was installed on the island pier for defreighting her vehicles. It was but a short-term expedient; she could not yet provide a RO/RO service to the island; the crossing was far too long (the timetable allowed two hours, though BRUERNISH could normally shave ten minutes off that); Gigha Pier afforded limited shelter in spring gales – BRUERNISH had often to fly in the night for better anchorage in West Loch Tarbert; and she was only certificated for 36 passengers on this auxiliary crossing.

So works proceeded on the construction of suitable slipways at Gigha (at Ardminish) and at Tayinloan, a convenient cove directly opposite on the Kintyre coast, so that she could finally operate a suitable car ferry service. In the event, BRUERNISH was absent for Clyde overhaul when the Tayinloan - Gigha service was at last inaugurated – opened by her sister COLL on Monday 10th November 1980 – but happily took up the much more convenient passage when she returned on the 14^th. The crossing took only twenty minutes and she was at first timetabled to give four return trips a day with an extra double-run on Mondays. She enjoyed a substantial berth at Tayinloan, but the Ardminish facilities consisted only of the bare slipway and she had to lie overnight at a mooring buoy – sometimes dashing to it in the day if conditions became lively between her duties.

BRUERNISH served Gigha, most reliably, for thirteen years, but on 13^th September 1992 finally quit for her annual overhaul at Ardmaleish; the RHUM served Gigha until the 26^th, and on that date the LOCH RANZA arrived as the new permanent vessel on the Gigha service. BRUERNISH, refloated on 14^th October, was once again a jobbing bowloader, and duly celebrated her return to life as a gipsy rover with a charter to Holy Isle on the 26^th, collecting cattle and ponies. On 28^th October she bore workers to service a navigation light in West Loch Tarbert and then sailed to Fionnphort, where she was employed in works to the new pier being built for the LOCH BUIE. She lay as spare vessel at Tobermory for some days, relieved at Gigha in November, made a livestock run from Canna to Kilchoan on the 28^th, relieved at Raasay... relieved at Lismore... relieved again at Gigha... and that was just her first winter.

Involved in construction works with a mobile crane aboard

Taking over relief Iona duties from the Loch Buie

On 16^th December 1996 the BRUERNISH became the Ballycastle - Rathlin ferry and was the first CalMac ship to carry vehicles to the island, serving Rathlin for some months and presiding over the route's adoption as an official CalMac service on 2^nd April 1997. When the CANNA arrived on 22^nd April as the dedicated vessel, BRUERNISH sailed to the Clyde and became in her own part the dedicated Tarbert-Portavadie ferry – though not for long. BRUERNISH survived the passing of KILBRANNAN and MORVERN, and survived too the purge of COLL and RHUM in 1997; a tribute to her condition and the care and attention she had enjoyed at Gigha for thirteen years.

In March 1999 she relieved, on charter, the new Argyll & Bute Council ferry EILEAN DHIURA on her passage from Port Askaig to Feolin on Jura; in April, BRUERNISH opened the Tobermory-Kilchoan car ferry service for the season, keeping it warm for LOCH LINNHE, which finally became the Kilchoan ferry on 30^th April 1999. The following day saw BRUERNISH stake more new territory with a livestock sailing from Tobermory to Kilchoan, Muck and Eigg. (She landed a bull at Muck, which also – in the course of that single day – enjoyed a visit from LOCHMOR and its very first call by the paddle-steamer WAVERLEY.) That summer saw BRUERNISH on more livestock runs to the Small Isles, alternating with RAASAY for a month as Lismore ferry (with occasional calls to Kerrera) and, with the return of EIGG after a significant rebuild, a final division of duties as regional spare vessels – RAASAY was stationed at Oban in that capacity, and BRUERNISH at Portavadie on the Clyde, from 11^th July 1999.

Carrying the new livery, leaving Tobermory

Lying at Oban's south pier

By the time of her final departure, she was one of a select and very small band of car ferries to have attained thirty years in service - GLEN SANNOX and JUPITER being two others in this club– in fact she had been in service longer than any other recent car ferry, having beaten GLEN SANNOX's record of just over 32 years back in June 2005. Quite a claim to fame for such a little vessel!