We’ve long been aware of the potential of medium-speed catamarans to improve west-coast ferry services, and to do so very cost-effectively. Stuart Ballantyne is the Scottish ship designer behind the Pentalina who’s Australian company has delivered hundreds of such vessels to inter-island ferry companies the world over. He has now formed a partnership with the Campaign to Save Inchgreen Drydock and others, advocating for his catamaran ferry designs to be built on the Clyde.
To be successful in a highly competitive industry, shipyards often specialise in particular vessel types where they have a design advantage. Stuart Ballantyne’s catamaran designs are the world leaders in medium-speed catamarans (infact he invented the class), and he is offering those designs to Scotland. They could be built in quantity in Fergusons, and a revitalised Inchgreen and Govan drydocks. Not only would that give them a competitive design advantage, but it would enable an affordable renewal of the entire fleet around a vessel type that is ideally suited to our routes and ports.
FOLLOW THIS LINK to read about the Clyde Catamaran Group in more detail, or watch Stuart below talking about the concept.
