{"id":774053,"date":"2026-09-17T22:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774053\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T22:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T22:32:11","slug":"tugs-plan-offers-short-term-lifeline-for-ferguson-marine-shipyard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/774053\/","title":{"rendered":"Tugs plan offers short-term lifeline for Ferguson Marine shipyard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The Ferguson Marine shipyard is to build a number of tugs while it awaits promised orders from the Scottish government.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ministers agreed to provide financial backing for construction of the small vessels. The state-owned yard will then try to find a buyer.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Scotland understands that the Port Glasgow firm will work with another established shipbuilder, possibly the Dutch firm Damen, on a pre-packaged design, allowing the work to start relatively quickly.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The announcement was criticised by opposition parties for being below expectations, after the SNP made a pre-election pledge for four new vessels for the yard.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Transport Secretary Stephen Flynn said the tugs would maintain vital workforce skills while officials continue the due diligence process on these orders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ferguson Marine is currently in the final stages of completing MV Glen Rosa, the second of two long-delayed Calmac ferries.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Delivery is currently scheduled before the end of the year and the firm has no other confirmed orders.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">In a statement at Holyrood, Flynn said the tugs plan put forward by the firm&#8217;s management was a &#8220;sensible&#8221; way of providing work in the interim.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Ferguson Marine shipyard is to build a number of tugs while it awaits promised orders from the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":774054,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-774053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=774053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/774053\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/774054"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=774053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=774053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=774053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}