Summary of the article “Ferry transport in Scotland” by Alf Baird and Gordon Wilmsmeier

Prof Alf Baird welcomes new ferry to Orkney

The ferry, manufactured in Cebu in the Philippines by FBMA Inc., is a 70m long vessel constructed with a steel hull and aluminium superstructure. Pentalina is designed to carry up to 350 passengers, plus 9 trucks and 32 cars (or over 80 cars). The vessel, with a maximum speed of 19 knots, will be introduced in January 2009 across the Pentland Firth, one of the most notoriously difficult stretches of water in the world. 

All eyes will be on the 100% privately funded, unsubsidised new ferry, which will compete with the Caledonian MacBrayne-owned Northlink Ferries. The latter receives public funding of around £30 million a year to run services to Shetland and Orkney using traditional monohull ro-ro ferries. 

The catamaran has a significantly lower cost structure than the CalMac/Northlink ship. Newbuild cost of the 350-passenger/88 car Pentalina (estimated at about £10m) was one third the cost of Northlink’s 600-passenger/110 car Hamnavoe (£28m in 2002!). Pentalina has a smaller crew so there are also cost savings there. Perhaps most importantly, however, the Pentalina’s design efficiency and lower engine power gives a fuel consumption of about 600 litres/hour compared with the Hamnavoe’s 1,800 litres/hour, at 16/17 knots. 

By virtue of the shorter route between Gill’s Bay and St. Margaret’s Hope, Pentland Ferries Pentalina should be capable of providing up to four roundtrips/day, compared with Northlink’s three roundtrips/day on the Stromness-Scrabster route. Even taking into account the Pentalina’s lower capacity relative to Hamnavoe, the catamaran is expected to eventually carry more traffic than its fuel-hungry subsidized competitor. 

The article the Ileach published on this topic a while back seemed to have little effect and the Minister subsequently sanctioned the order for a traditional design of ferry for Islay at a cost of some £24.5m. The argument still stands, however, that a superior and also far less expensive option could have been to instead order two medium-speed (18 knot) catamarans for the same price as one traditional monohull vessel. That option was never really tested at the time. Overall vessel capital, crew, and fuel costs (which make up 90% of the total running cost of the ship) could have been significantly reduced. 

Whilst new to Scotland, it is not as if the medium-speed vehicle catamaran is radically new or un-tested. The Pentalina’s Queensland based designer and naval architect Stuart Ballantyne has designed many similar vessels for operation in over 40 countries. Mr. Ballantyne also owns a ferry company in Australia which has operated similar vessels successfully for many years. 

The new vessel owning company, Caledonian Maritime Asssets (CMAL), is now quite rightly taking a significant interest in the future possibilities for this and other types of vessel. That should be reassuring for Scotland’s island communities who depend on the most optimal solutions possible, to help contain and where possible reduce transport costs, as well as enabling operators to increase revenues through service enhancements.