People left waiting for hours after Yell ferry fault

THERE were reports of people waiting up to five hours at the Toft ferry terminal on Sunday morning after a fault with equipment on the Dagalien‘s rescue boat resulted in disruption to the Yell Sound service.

The stand-in vessel Fivla, which has limited capacity, ran a shuttle service until the larger Dagalien was repaired.

The problem was with the steering hydraulic hose on the ferry’s rescue boat.

The council said in the afternoon that the normal timetable had resumed.

It comes after problems with the Ulsta linkspan reduced Yell Sound to a single vessel service earlier this month for a number of days.

The usual Yell ferry Daggri is currently in dry dock.

North Isles councillor Ryan Thomson, who is standing in the upcoming SIC election, said some of the waits people had to endure were “entirely unacceptable”.

He said there is now “no alternative, no option, no excuse” when it comes to introducing fixed links, adding that the “crews are doing an excellent job with extremely limited resources”.

Trucks with loads of whitefish and salmon were also caught up in the delays.