RHUM was the second of the lengthened Small Island Class ferries to be launched, and the last of them to sail in the colours of David MacBrayne Ltd. She was for many years the principal vessel on the Lochranza-Claonaig “back door” crossing to Arran, inaugurated by her elder sister KILBRANNAN in June 1972; but it was a summer-only crossing and ,every winter of her career, she was but a spare and stand-by vessel.

Nevertheless it was the little RHUM which in 1994 inaugurated the Tarbert-Portavadie ferry run and, in her very last months with the Company, she was stationed permanently on the Scalpay crossing and finally closed that 32-year service in December 1997.

RHUM was in fact the first Small Island Class ferry actually to be named after an island, if incorrectly spelled! For a full description of her design, machinery and capabilities, see the history of KILBRANNAN.

Launched on 23^rd May 1973, RHUM ran trials off Skelmorlie, including a run or two between Largs and Cumbrae Slip, on 22^nd June, and was photographed at Largs in her David MacBrayne livery. However, she had adopted a Caledonian MacBrayne funnel by the time she entered service on the Lochranza-Claonaig crossing on 28^th June – relieving the KILBANNAN, as it first appeared, but in fact becoming the permanent vessel on that station. Each winter, however, she relieved around the network, and by the time she was finally superseded on the Kilbrannan Sound by the LOCHRANZA – which assumed the service on 16^th April 1987 – the wee RHUM had visited almost all the islands served by her sisters, save Scalpay.

Rhum on trials in the Clyde

At Lochranza she proved a victim of her own success – traffic built up on the crossing to the point where her vehicle capacity was overwhelmed, and indeed would overwhelm her successor; latterly RHUM had had to be backed up by another Small Island ferry, usually COLL – and from April 1987 RHUM was demoted fulltime to stand-by status. Her first duty was to relieve at LISMORE, for MORVERN had broken at Iona and COLL – diverted to replace her – had been relieving EIGG for her own overhaul. After RHUM herself enjoyed refitting on the Clyde, she lay successively at Rothesay and then Greenock's East India Harbour before sailing north to Tobermory and spending the rest of that summer as West Highland spare vessel. In September she gave up one of her starter-motors to the EIGG; it was replaced a few days later. That winter she relieved once at Raasay and twice at Gigha, and in the spring of 1988 sailed to Lochranza from Gourock to ready the secondary Arran ferry crossing for LOCHRANZA's second bout of summer service – on this occasion RHUM arrived with the Lochranza moorings and the Claonaig waiting room!

.She limped from her berth at Haun on Eriskay early on Christmas Eve, collected a spare part at Lochboisdale, and spent two days at Lochmaddy sheltering from a gale, and then had to turn back from attempting passage to Stornoway on Tuesday 27^th December when her starboard engine came out in sympathy. She finally reached the Lewis port on Thursday 29^th, calling briefly at Scalpay that morning. After further repairs and trials, she returned to Scalpay on Thursday 26^th January 1989 to relieve the KILBRANNAN.

Lying at Tobermory's new slipway

In September 1991 RHUM made a livestock run to Eigg and in December she lost a propeller while relieving at Gigha, and had to crawl to Oban on one engine; the MORVERN broke down in the Crinan Canal as she chugged to her aid and the island was denied a car ferry service for several days. RHUM relieved again at Scalpay in January 1992 – her fourth successive visit – and yet again lost a propeller. Fortunately both CANNA and RAASAY were in Stornoway for overhaul and divers were sent to Kyles Scalpay with a spare screw; they might have left their wetsuits at home, for they arrived to find CANNA turned about and beached, bottom bare, on the slipway by her resourceful crew.

She saw further relief at Jura, Fishinish, Gigha, Iona etc. and in the spring of 1994 was chartered to the contractors building the new Skye Bridge, though she had only been at Kyleakin for a few days when she was pressed into service to assist the ISLE OF CUMBRAE, LOCH DUNVEGAN having broken down following grounding on the Skye slipway and damaging a Voith-Schneider unit. The COLL arrived as Skye back-up on 25^th March 1994 and RHUM was then free to shuttle between the contractors' private slips – at Kyleakin and the Plock of Kyle – and the bridgeworks.

That summer she opened a new CalMac service, across Loch Fyne from Tarbert to Portavadie, running trials on Tuesday 5^th July 1994 and taking about twenty-five minutes on passage. The route had originally been proposed for experimental opening in 1993 – and had been anticipated by Iain c MacArthur as long before as 1971 – and no one was sure how successful the shortcut crossing might prove. RHUM finally opened the service on Thursday 7th July, making hourly crossings from Tarbert from 8 am to 7 pm – eleven double runs daily, including Sundays. On her first run she took two cars and one pedestrian and by the close of play that Thursday she had borne 100 passengers and thirty cars. The following day she briefly grounded at very low tide, just beyond the end of of the Portavadie slip, and thereafter sailed with a wary eye on the tide until the rocks were removed. A bulge then appeared across the Portavadie slipway itself and on 17^th July the RHUM grounded for three hours on that! “Nonetheless,” reported the West Highland Steamer Club newsletter, “the service proved an instant success, particularly with traffic travelling to Tarbert, and six cars per trip were not unusual – certainly on Saturdays.” The service was formally opened on Thursday 28^th July and it was reported that RHUM had, in three weeks, already carried 4,350 passengers and 957 cars.

“The success story continued over the next few weeks,” the WHSC report continues, “and on 25^th August the Oban Times reported that twenty cars had turned up for one of her sailings, meaning that fourteen had to be left behind. A Company spokesman was quoted as saying that 'If we had a bigger boat to put on, we would.' In her first two months she carried some 3,500 vehicles and 15,000 passengers... Her service is scheduled to finish on 3^rd October according to the timetable, but in fact she is to continue in service until Saturday 15^th October – to coincide with the Mod at Dunoon.” It was all a spectacular success for the Tarbert-Portavadie crossing and reflected well on the wee RHUM, already in her 21^st year of service.

She closed the passage for the season on the stated Saturday – completing all her runs even on 6^th October, when she was plagued by cylinder head trouble – and the final figures for the new route in its three months of operation were 18,813 passengers and 4,563 cars. Plans for a winter Tarbert-Portavadie-Lochranza-Claonaig service, however, hit an unforeseen snag – the Tarbert Harbour authorities, in a singularly crass decision, refused permission for a LOCH-class ferry to berth in the inner harbour. At first it seemed they might at least allow the RHUM to do so – and she was scheduled to take up such duties on 21^st November, when even that option was denied and CalMac were forced to forgo a winter timetable for the time being.

RHUM instead assisted that late October at Fishnish, relieved at Kilchoan (on an winter timetable), paid what was becoming almost an annual visit to Eigg, and lay at Rothesay before again relieving at Jura. In December 1994 RHUM sailed north to relieve at Raasay; March 1995 brought another stint at Jura, and then RHUM did the usual pre-season jaunt with Lochranza moorings before resuming the Tarbert-Portavadie schedule on Good Friday 14^th April 1995. At first she offered a six-day service, with (oddly) no Tuesday sailings scheduled – though in the event she did sail on Tuesday 30^th May, for Tarbert Regatta; and 6^th June, in connection with a day of powerboat races there. But RHUM was in full service through July and August and the crossing was even busier than in the summer of 1994 – on one day, Saturday 12^th August, she had to carry 93 cars and 350 passengers; and cars were left behind on many sailings. Only in September was she a little beset by fog and mechanical troubles.

On Friday 3^rd November 1995 LOCH STRIVEN took over the service and RHUM was free to relieve at Kilchoan (with the usual run to Eigg, on 15^th December) until the winter service ceased on 30^th December. RHUM then lay at the Tobermory buoy as spare vessel until EIGG arrived to assume that role on Wednesday 17^th January 1996; RHUM was making for the Crinan Canal when she diverted to Jura to relieve SOUND OF GIGHA in emergency for one day.

Loading at Portavadie

RHUM's swansong at Scalpay surprised many; it was a backhanded compliment to the MacSween family, who had maintained CANNA to such a high standard that by 1997 she was the smartest and best-maintained of the Small Island bowloaders. Accordingly, CANNA was the ferry identified for permanent service on the Ballycastle-Rathlin roster – CalMac's latest, newest route – and RHUM was fingered as her replacement.

She quit Port Askaig at last on Saturday 8^th March and headed north by Tobermory, Lochmaddy and Berneray. From Monday 10^th RHUM (rather improbably) relieved the new LOCH BHRUSDA on the equally new Sound of Harris passage – though the original relief chosen for the purpose, EIGG, would have been no better suited. Nevertheless the little RHUM coped manfully until the EIGG arrived on 15^th March; the HEBRIDEAN ISLES did some extra Tarbert-Lochmaddy runs in the light of their very limited capacity for vehicles.

The main span was laid on Monday 9^th June 1997 and by the onset of winter a good many Scalpay residents were (unofficially) walking across it while the RHUM was laid up for the night! The new bridge, practically complete, was finally opened to traffic at 11 a.m. on the morning of Tuesday 16^th December – the simple ceremony consisting of the local dignitary, and Deputy Lord Lieutenant, Mr John Murdo Morrison, driving across the new bridge in a pre-war Austin and bearing as lady passenger the Isle of Scalpay's oldest resident, 102-year old Mrs Chrissie Morrison. (A much trumped official opening was held in September 1998, the guest of honour being the Prime Minister, Tony Blair. Be it noted that Mrs Morrison politely declined to meet him; and that she is still alive in May 2004, still lives by herself, still makes her own scones and – at the splendid age of a hundred and eight – is now the oldest person in the Western Isles.)

So RHUM closed the Scalpay ferry, making the last run from Kyles Scalpay at 11.15 that Tuesday morning, before cruising in circles below the new bridge. At half past two that same afternoon, a relief crew having arrived, she set sail for Oban and took up the Lismore service the following day. On Saturday 20^th December she did a special run to Craignure with six cars for which the relief ferry, LORD OF THE ISLES, had lacked sufficient space. RHUM saw out her final days with the Company on this Oban-Lismore roster and Thursday 15^th January 1998 was her last in CalMac passenger service. She and COLL had been identified for disposal after the distinctly political twist of fate restored ex-Skye ferries LOCH FYNE and LOCH DUNVEGAN to active service after two years in Tory-enforced Clyde lay-up.

Both vessels were sold to Mr Cornelius Bonner on Tuesday 14^th April 1998 and left Campbeltown for Ireland on Friday 17^th; Mr Bonner and associates had already acquired KILBRANNAN and MORVERN, several years before, and fully appreciated the worth of these reliable and well designed little ferries. Registered in the name of Arranmore Island Ferry Services, RHUM and COLL partner the former KILBRANNAN – now ARAINN MHOR – on the 20-minute passage from Burtonport in County Donegal to Leabgarrow on Arranmore Island. There are eight crossings daily in summer and five in winter; only one ferry is usually in use at any given time.