UPDATED: The Cowes Floating Bridge has had its certificate to operate reinstated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) following an inspection on Friday.
As first reported by Island Echo the MCA forced the Isle of Wight Council to pull the brand new £3.2million chain ferry from service on the morning of 15th May, just 24 hours after the vessel suffered an electrical breakdown.
Now, 3 weeks later, inspectors from the MCA have declared the floating bridge safe to enter service following extensive training and testing, although that was not without drama.
Floating Bridge No. 6 – the vessel’s official name – has not left the River Medina since its arrival and therefore locals wonder if the splitter-scraping problems reported on the first weekend of service have been rectified or not.
It is currently unclear as to when the popular Cowes to East Cowes service will come back into operation. In the meantime, a passenger-only launch continues.
UPDATE @ 15:57 – The Isle of Wight Council have this afternoon (Monday) confirmed that the floating bridge will be back in service on Wednesday 7th June, from 05:00, just in time for the Isle of Wight Festival.
Over the past couple of weeks, while the vessel has been out of service, further ‘extensive staff training’ and ‘additional practice’ have been undertaken.
On Thursday evening, further vehicle testing was undertaken to ensure that the modelling that took place during the design of the floating bridge, was practicable with the actual bridge and following the teething issues experienced when the new bridge began its live testing period.
Councillor Ian Ward, Cabinet Member for Transport, said:
“Now that the floating bridge crew have had more time to use the floating bridge and have had more time to get used to it, they are confident and able to bring the bridge closer to the shore. This has mitigated the issues experienced during the first day of its service, as was seen during vehicle testing of embarkation and disembarkation recently.
“In order to further improve the access to the floating bridge, we have been working with the naval architects/designers to add longer ‘fingers’ to the end of the prows at either end. These will lessen yet further, the angle by which vehicles embark and disembark the floating bridge and improve the ease of access.”
It is anticipated that the new ‘fingers’ will be replaced during July, which will require minimal impact to service at this time.
A spokesperson for the Isle of Wight Council has said:
“It had always been anticipated that, as with any new vehicle, there would be a period of time for staff and users to become used to its operation. We would encourage all vehicle users to continue to drive slowly onto and off of the floating bridge, as has always been the case”.
VIDEO: Watch the video below issued by the Isle of Wight Council addressing the splitter-scraping problems.
