The first thing I did was check whether the windows were real because you’ll remember that when Glen Sannox was “launched” in 2017, the windows were painted on; they were fake. But this time the news is good: the windows are real, the ferry is finished, and we’re ready to go. It’s finally here: the ferry nobody wanted.

Let me remind you what’s been happening. Seven years to the day since that notorious launch (just remembered: the funnels were fake too), Glen Sannox has been handed over by the Ferguson shipyard to CMAL, the government’s ferry procurement agency, who will lease it to CalMac, who’ll run the thing on the route to Arran. John Petticrew, the chief executive of Ferguson’s – there’s been a few – said the ship was a fine vessel capable of providing decades of service to the islanders and visitors.

I would hope so too: the ferry is six years overdue and cost £300m more than they said it would. What happens next is it’ll go through some final trials so the crew can get used to it before it starts on the Arran route in January and it’s hard to say what we’re expected to feel after all this time, and all that money. Satisfaction? Relief? Frustration? No: anger.

Let me tell what the islanders think, and some of the other people who depend on the Arran ferry. I’ve been over to the island a few times speaking to folk there about the crisis and I remember one islander in particular telling me what the problem with the government approach has been from the start. “For God's sake,” he said, “come and talk to the islanders and listen to them and act on what we’re saying.”

They never did, which is why Glen Sannox is the ferry nobody wanted. I recall another frustrated islander telling me about one of the very early meetings CalMac had on Arran during the initial planning stages for the ferries. A company representative grandiloquently laid out their plans for what became Glen Sannox but almost to a man and a woman, the islanders looked and said: this isn’t what we need.

What they needed was pretty simple: two, ideally three, small ferries or catamarans that could zip across to Ardrossan back to back. It would mean there’d always be a spare one in the case of breakdown or emergency but more importantly, catamarans are more resilient and reliable in bad weather and, more importantly still, they’re cheaper. This is what the islanders said they wanted.

Had the government listened and chosen this option, they would have avoided one of the other big problems their decision to go for a big ferry caused, which is the crisis in Ardrossan. The original plan was for the Glen Sannox to do the normal Ardrossan-to-Arran route but when it does start work in January, it won’t be from Ardrossan, it’ll be from Troon because the Glen Sannox is too big for the Ardrossan pier. People in the town are really worried about this: they’re concerned their ferry may never come back.

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Again, this is something that could have been avoided, most obviously by commissioning ferries that were the right size for the pier that was already there. But when that didn’t happen, they could have, and should have, cracked on with an upgrade to the pier in time for the arrival of the Glen Sannox. The problem is the Scottish Government has been arguing with the other two partners, Peel Ports and North Ayrshire Council, over who’s going to pay for it all, and it’s still not resolved and no one knows when it will be.

You can see that some of this is down to the messy way our ferries and ports are run in the part-private, part-public system. Peel Ports has been accused of under-investing in the harbour but Peel Ports had nothing to do with commissioning ferries that were too big for the pier. Much more worrying is the tripartite system that runs the ferries that’s been shown to be unfit for purpose. CMAL and CalMac should be merged.

If you’re an islander, you will certainly know that CalMac is also struggling to maintain a winter timetable because of a fundamental failure of the system: the ferries that are currently in service have been allowed to get old. In the first 15 years of the SNP Government, they put into service half the number of vessels that were put into service in the 15 years before they came to power. It’s one of the reasons the current network is creaking so loudly at the seams.

(Image: The official handover of Glen Sannox)

In the meantime, I suppose we must try to be optimistic and believe the Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes when she says the Glen Sannox will provide greater resilience to the fleet and that its delivery this week is a major step forward in the government’s programme to procure six new ferries by 2026. But should we believe her more than we believed Alex Salmond when he awarded the contracts to Ferguson’s, or Nicola Sturgeon when she stood and cheered in front of the fake windows and plywood funnels?

I’m not sure. A friend of mine has just moved to Cumbrae and I went over to see him the other day and we went for a walk along the front at Millport and had a couple of pints and he told me about the benefits of his new life on the island compared to his old life in Glasgow and I could see it. You know how it is: you start to wonder what it would be like.

But my friend also told me there was a chance I wouldn’t get home that night because the ferry might be cancelled and that’s fine it happens: weather, storms, acts of God. The ongoing crisis of Scotland’s ferries is different though: it isn’t about acts of God, it’s about acts of Government: neglect, inefficiency, incompetence and the failure to listen to the people affected by your decisions. Remember, please, the islander’s plea: talk to us, listen to us, and act on what we’re saying. It’s still possible.