It's a constant problem especially when you live here and rely on them regularly.

I along with hundreds of others got stuck in the UK for an extra 3 days at Christmas when the rudder fell off or whatever it was that put the Ben out of service during the busy Christmas & New Year period.

They are saying that the Ben is getting towards replacement time soon, which seems odd when it's only about 17 years old, and the boats it replaced had seen service in WW2 and didn't seem to be hit by anything like the same amount of technical problems we get with the Ben.