Harbour and maritime industry
On 1 January 1919, Iolaire sank at the entrance of the harbour, one of the worst maritime disasters in UK waters, with a death toll of 205 men,[20] who were returning home from World War I.
Today, the harbour hosts a fishing fleet (and associated shoreside services) somewhat reduced from its heyday, a small marina and moorings for pleasure craft, a small shipyard and slipway, three larger piers for commercial traffic and Stornoway Lifeboat Station, run by the RNLI and home to a Severn-class lifeboat, Tom Sanderson. His Majesty's Coastguard operates a Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre from a building near the harbour.[21][22][23]
A lighthouse, seaweed processing plant and a renewable energy manufacturing yard are situated on Arnish Point at the mouth of the harbour and visually dominate the approaches. Arnish Point was also proposed by AMEC as the landfall for its proposed private sub-sea cable which would export the electricity generated from the Lewis Windpower wind farm. A planning application for 181 turbines was submitted to the Scottish Executive; but in 2008, the Scottish Government rejected the plans.
Since then Lewis Windpower has obtained planning consent for a maximum of 36 wind turbines to be sited to the west of Stornoway on land held by community-owned Stornoway Trust Estate.
The Arnish area was also surveyed by SSE for a second sub-sea cable, but lost out in favour of Gravir to the south as the preferred site. SSE preferred Arnish Point as of 2016. The manufacturing yard was originally established in the 1970s as a fabrication plant for the oil industry, but suffered regular boom and bust cycles. The downturn in business from the North Sea oil industry in recent years led to a move away from serving this market. The yard is now proposed as a key business in the development of the whole Arnish Point industrial estate and has received large amounts of funding in recent years.[24][25][26]
In 2007, the Arnish yard was taken over by its third tenant in as many years. Cambrian Engineering fell into liquidation as did Aberdeen-owned Camcal Ltd with relatively large-scale redundancies. Both firms were affected by the absence of a regular stream of orders and left a chain of large debts impacting upon local suppliers. Altissimo Ltd is a new firm backed by a group of Swiss and Dutch investors, and has purchased the Camcal name from the previous operator.[27] In December 2007, the yard won a contract to construct 49 towers for wind turbines in Turkey. This will ensure employment for around 70 employees for over six months.[28]
As of 2021, the yard is now operated by Harland and Wolff.[29][30]
In September 2020, Stornoway Port Authority announced that development of a new £49 million deep water terminal was to go ahead following the approval of marine licences by Marine Scotland.[31]
The new multi-purpose terminal will provide berthing for vessels up to 360m long with a water depth of 10m below Chart datum, a ferry berth, and 6.5 hectares of land for unloading, storage and industrial uses.[32]
In April 2022, Stornoway Port Authority announced they had signed a £49 million construction contract[33] for their new Deep Water Terminal. The contract was awarded to building and civil engineering firm McLaughlin and Harvey. Work is expected to be completed by the end of 2023.
