Their emergency records, reports ForArgyll, are outstanding. They went to the assistance of thegrounded nuclear submarine, HMS Astute on Skye. They were involved in the move, by Svitzer Marine’s Anglegarth and Svitzer Musselwick (brought up from Milford Haven) in – after firefighting -  towing the dangerously fire-damaged Yeoman Bontrup from the jetty at the Glensanda superquarry.

The fear was that in a low spring tide the weakened and loaded hull would be breached by rocks below and she would settle at the jetty, putting the quarry out of operation out for a significant period.

She was carefully towed to a safe anchorage in the Lynn of Lorn, pending towing to the Netherlands for unloading and repair.

Mike Penning (left) reports ForArgyll, was brought up in Essex;  is MP for the inland rural Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire; was in the army, in business and worked for a spell as a political journalist and previously been Shadow Health Minister.

The decision with regards the ETVs is strongly opposed by the shipping industry – for good reason. The ETVs are dedicated emergency vessels. They do nothing else. They guard the dangerous waters of the Atlantic to the north of the British Isles – and are free to respond immediately.

Counting commercially operating tugs in the industry and concluding there is adequate 'alternative' towing capacity is naive. Commercial tugs earn their living with plenty of work to do anywhere around UK coastal waters.

The challenge in Loch Striven when Maersk needed to remove Sealand Performance from the centre of a raft of six large cargo ships in lay up required six tugs – three from Svitzer’s Clyde fleet and three from elsewhere. One came fromMilford Haven in the south west, one from Middlesborough and one from Lowestoft, both east coast ports with a very tight time available before they were needed back at their home ports.

Setting the scenario
The ETVs have gone.  All three Svitzer tugs are moving the bulk of the first section of the aircraft carrier,Queen Elizabeth down the River Clyde (right courtesy ForArgyll) from Govan for onward tow to Rosyth. In a storm to the north, a fully laden tanker coming down the Minch loses engine power and drifts aground near a skerry at Point of Stoer in Sutherland. 

Tugs in Aberdeen are busy and further away than those in the Clyde. But  there tugs are already under way with the giant barge AMT Trader, carrying the giant block of the carrier out of the Clyde, and can’t just park it in the river and take off to the north west. This is a slow, precise, highly skilled operation. They are not free to do anything else until this task is successfully completed in around seven hours.

In storm conditions and in this time, lives may be saved by SAR helicopters  and lifeboats – but serious environmental damage is likely to occur. And if it wasn’t a tanker but a loaded ferry or cruise liner drifting out of control  in The Minch? Were the ETVs on station, one nearby at Stornoway and one around the corner at Kirkwall, their massive power would be capable of averting disaster.

But they don’t exist any longer.

Dropping traditional rescue takes time
Government says that it has concluded that emergency towing provision is not a government duty, and it expects industry to look after for itself. But our culture is programmed. Traditional rescue systems are geared to the perception that ‘all those in peril on the sea’ are one, and not  divided into categories of risk to determine the responsible agency.

To change our mindset and our consequent support systems on this – both will take time to reach a point of safety where current provisions can be removed. Industry cannot summon ETVs out of the mist.

This decision has to be delayed until a stable alternative is in place if  Marine and Coastguard Agency is indeed to abandon responsibility for this necessary provision.  As the group of MPs now engaged on a last chance campaign to halt the withdrawal of the ETVs, have forcefully put it

" A single avoidable disaster will cost many times the annual savings to be made in this proposal."