[9] After they encountered difficulty in maintaining a flow of work, a Scottish Executive cabinet meeting on 1 June 2005 discussed news that orders for fishery protection vessels and a CalMac ferry had been won by the Remontowa shipyard in Gdańsk.

The minutes of the meeting record that "It was difficult to explain to Scottish taxpayers why public funds were being used to buy a vessel from Poland and make redundancy payments to shipbuilders in Port Glasgow.

[12] Originally intended for delivery during 2018, construction difficulties (the reasons for which are in dispute) led to a two-year delay for the first ship, Glen Sannox, which was launched in November 2017.

[16] On 30 October 2018, FMEL secured a contract to construct a large air cushioned barge for Mangistau ACV Solutions Ltd, part of the CMI Offshore Ltd Group, with estimated completion scheduled in 2019.

[21] Attempts by Clyde Blowers Capital to negotiate with the Scottish Government over increased costs and delays to ferries failed, and on 9 August 2019 the directors of FMEL gave notice that the company would be put into administration.

[24][25] At the start of December, after three private bids to purchase the yard were rejected as being insufficiently favourable to creditors, the government formally took ownership of the shipyard, and in the process wrote off about £50 million of previous loans.

[26] The commercial transaction nationalising the shipyard was completed on 2 December 2019, making it a new business named Ferguson Marine (Port Glasgow) Ltd..[26][27] The costs and viability of completing contracts was investigated, and on 22 January 2020 turnaround director Tim Hair told a Scottish Parliament inquiry that the large ferries MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802 were "significantly less than half built", with 95% of their design still to be agreed with the client body Caledonian Maritime Assets.

[31] The large air cushioned barge for CMI Offshore Ltd (ordered from FMEL in 2018) was launched on 24 June 2020, to be taken to the Caspian Sea to be completed and outfitted for oil exploration work in that area.

[32] The company's board of directors with six non–executive members, including Alistair Mackenzie as chairman, was appointed in June 2020 by the Scottish Government Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop.

[35] The bulbous bow of Hull 802 was fitted in September 2021, and reported as a landmark in significant progress to both ships, deliveries of which by January 2022 were running up to five years late.