Due to the adverse weather tonight's ferry has been cancelled. All the more reason for a ferry related post with the results of the poll and two beautiful black and white ferry images! A week ago I started a poll to determine which name you, as readers of this blog, would prefer as name for the new Islay ferry that is currently being built in Poland. Earlier CMAL announced a competition for the new name following an alleged consultation. As far as I have heard nobody on Islay was consulted so you can understand that most Ilich weren't too pleased with the proposed names Finlaggan, Locheil, Pioneer and Glendale. CMAL was asked why the name 'Isle of Islay' wasn't included to which they answered that island names for ferries were no longer considered. Several people protested against the proposed names and wanted the name 'Isle of Islay' included. The Ileach newspaper tried to register the name in the official UK Ships Register and Councillor Robin Currie started a petition to convince CMAL to include the name 'Isle of Islay'. So far CMAL hasn't responded to the letters and petition and if nothing changes the name of the new ferry will be announced on St Andrews day, 30 November, one of the four that is. Continue reading.....

Now back to the results of the poll. When I started it last Saturday the name 'Isle of Islay' received the most votes right from the start, as expected, and ended with almost 50% of the votes. However, something interesting happened a day later when I received an email from a friend on Islay. He had a discussion with others in the pub and he asked me to include the name 'Queen of the Hebrides' into the poll. And what happened? The name proved to be very popular and at the end of the poll it had more than 25% of the votes. What can we conclude from the poll? The proposed CMAL names received only 20% of the votes and from these four names Finlaggan was the most popular one followed by Lochiel. The most popular name of all is 'Isle of Islay' and the name 'Queen of the Hebrides' is an excellent runner up.

What next you might wonder? I don't know. I will forward the results of the poll to the Ileach Newspaper and CMAL and perhaps CMAL will change their mind although I have serious doubts if our input will make a difference. Let's hope the petition of Robin Currie will sort some effect. As promised I close this post with two beautiful black and white images of Islay's rich ferry history.

Lochiel ferry at Port Askaig

Pibroch puffer at Lagavulin distillery. The white horse refers to White Horse Distillers Ltd.

Tag: ferry cmal poll pibroch lagavulin port askaig lochiel