The Dunoon passenger ferry experience

Yesterday (8th August 2011) we bench tested the new Argyll Ferries passenger service between Dunoon and Gourock – and checked out the wrap around experience of using it.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day (too bright for photography, so forgive us for the heat haze), with enough wind to chop up the water a bit, so conditions both showed the destinations at their best and gave the boat room to prove itself.

Starting from the necessary assumption of knowing nothing, the first thing about the experience was the familiar one of no real signage. At the landward end of the lovely old Dunoon pier (above) is an unusual and attractive little building (below), claiming to be the Dunoon Ferry Terminal. Closed. No one home. A sign saying ‘Tickets available on board’ and an arrow pointing to the right. Not a good start.

The arrow led to a bewildering and featureless expanse of tarmac, designed for queuing vehicles to a ferry it has never served, now used as a free car park, with alternate lines of cars (below) to allow for getting in and out at will. The parked cars block sightlines and there was no unmissable signage to reassure the foot passengers of the specific whereabouts of the ferry service that is the sole purpose for being there.

You do the logical thing and hug the footpath towards and around the water. You come to a series of bus stops. But where do you wait for the ferry? Do you take cover in the little bus shelters when it’s wet? At this stage, there’s nothing  to tell you.

Ahead, beyond an attractive and large viewpoint projecting onto the Clyde (some seats would be good) and below a short pier, you see the tall blue painted piled steel pillars supporting the new linkspan (below) for the ferries. This, at last, tells you where the action is.

A boat had just left and was moving fast and purposely away into the Clyde for Gourock. But there are 30 sailings a day in each direction and, although there was no sign of the ferry from the Gourock end on the way (it was late – ‘sea trials’), there was no great pressure. Turning around at the top of the slip, eyes fell upon a welcome and chirpily idiosyncratic cafe sign, on a white painted building yards away, looking as if it has a great view. It does – with windows to take advantage of it, outdoor as well as indoor tables and a substantial car park on the waterside.

This is the fun, bright and unpretentious Rock Cafe ( shoreside above, landside frontage below), that has been in the family of its present owner, Helen Forbes, for over thirty years. With work to do, we looked around, took a couple pf photographs and had a good cup of take away coffee. (Tip. You can buy books of ferry tickets here.)

Coffee and camera fighting for supremacy, we wandered back outside, looking at the approaches through the eyes of a stranger on foot or in a car – and at what you see here of Dunoon, as an incoming new visitor.

Road access to the cafe and to what is now the now ferry car park is fine but signage is again not the core service it should be. Across the road, high on her pedestal on a dominant mound, Robert Burns’ Highland Mary seems to reflect upon her life. Dunoon Castle and the Castle Museum (entrance above – opposite the ferry terminal)  nestle to the right behind her and the colourful side aspect of the 1958 Queen’s Hall (below) quickly betrays a build standard that screams ‘low rent investment’, ‘money back’ and ‘pull it down’. It has nothing to commend it and it is squatting on a site that should be a fulcrum of interest and pride for Dunoon.

Then and only then, on turning back to look inward to the ferry base, we see a cluster of battleship grey portacabins, with their backs sensibly to the water, opposite the Rock Cafe on the road down to the slipway and in the middle of the car parking lanes.

A sturdy ramp (above) leads to a Waiting Room – unannounced from the tarmac expanse where you arrive from the town side – which is the direction of approach for most ferry users.

Up the ramp to the door – which opens outwards. Doh.  I’m in a wheelchair. I reach for the door handle, It’s pouring with rain. How do I quickly reverse my wheel chair, pull open a door towards me at the same time, get inside and close the door behind me?

Inside (below) is a waiting room that, even empty (has anyone ever used it?) and with windows open behind their security grills, is hot, airless and feels, as most portacabins do, as if it was born with sick-building syndrome. You don’t want to be there. And, from inside, you can’t see when the ferry is coming in unless you stand up – which would leave you looming over those sitting in the chairs below.

Moving on, the next portacabin is the lavatory block – except that it’s closed – with a tacky notice giving the bad news. From what we are told, this is not unusual.

Furthest away – oh yes – is the lavatory for the disabled. Not closed. But not open. A temporary/permanent notice (below) directs the desperate wheelies to go get a key from a member of staff at an undisclosed location. It’s raining. I’ve just wheeled up the ramp. I can’t get in. This door too may well open outwards and there’s  no room anyway  to turn my wheelchair to go and look for a member of staff and the magic key. I have to reverse my wheelchair to do a three point turn in the corner where the ramp runs downwards to the ground.

Where do I find the member of staff with the key? I go back to try the Dunoon Ferry Terminal building. Closed. No one home. I wheel the long route to the slipway and may only find yellow jackets at the foot of that. Are they the keepers of the key? And will I have to bring it back to them afterwards, in the rain, before wheeling back uphill to the Waiting Room portacabin and struggling with the door that opens outwards?

This entire ‘facility’ – the word means something that makes things easy, helpful – is a thought-free zone. This typifies and shames the public sector everywhere. It would cost us no more to get it right.

A new purpose-built terminal building is promised in around a year’s time. But the first year is important for the viral word-of-mouth influence on public perceptions; a year is a long time; and supposing it’s two years before the new building is there?

By now the incoming ferry – a good looking boat – is on its approach to to the terminal. It’s the Argyll Flyer, the renamed Banrion Chonamara - the Queen of Connemara. With the Banríon na Farraige – Queen of the Sea – she is one of a pair of sister ships, built in France and now both sold, which ran a service to the Aran Islands, in Galway Bay off the Irish west coast in – Connemara. They sailed to the Arans from a port an hour west of Galway City in Atlantic waters that can be challenging.

The Argyll Flyer’s approach to the Dunoon terminal is unexpected. Well north of the linkspan, it heads straight for the town centre. Then it swings south and comes in to the terminal parallel to the shore, coming almost sideways on to the linkspan. At this stage, it turns its bow east along the pier (top), away from the shore, as best it can. It takes a series of urgent and awkward physical manoeuvres from crew in the stern (above) to help her come around to present her stern loading door (below) to the linkspan ramp.

This is  not a smooth operation. All of it says ‘ad hoc’. It’s faintly desperate. It could not be more clear that this boat is not designed for coming in to and embarking at linkspans – and its long sideways approach suggests that the bow and side thrusters which, with tight astern controls, make close quarter manoeuvering possible, are not present or not operative.

The few passengers come off – one teenager with a ‘Just do it’ T-shirt and a harmlessly cheeky sense of humour (not visibly appreciated), salutes the crew member (above) on the shore side of the footbridge.

Onboard, there are two decks – with a comfortably seated enclosed dual-sectioned cabin (below). This has sensible (for a 20-25 minute journey) machine-delivered, self-service refreshments – fresh sandwiches, crisps, chocolate etc, water, Coca Cola and Irn Bru; and a hot drinks machine with the full spectrum of coffees and with tea and hot chocolate – which was good.

There is unexplained water on the floor, midships, between the two cabin sections. Has it come from the roof, or from leaking onboard plumbing?  Lavatories come to mind, as they do. Summer sandals don’t like this water, neither does the imagination. No one is mopping up.

As well as the external stern stair to the top outdoor deck, there’s a second internal stair between the two sections of the enclosed cabin, behind the refreshment machines. This delivers you to the upper deck, just behind the spacious bridge (above). In our view – which we proved (gently) – if you were coming down this inside stair in lumpy water conditions, or if the boat hit the wake of a passing ship, you could very easily hit your forehead hard on the vertical edge of the deck you must pass below as you descend. And to clarify the real risk here, one of our onboard team, the author, is not blessed with height, so was nominated to test out the possibility. Bang.

The upper deck is great – weather, of course, permitting. Wide, plenty of seats, stoutly railed, superb views – not least of passing shipping, a major attraction for boat buffs in the historic Clyde waterway. Western Ferries red vehicle and passenger carrying boats make colourful punctuation marks against the navy water and the white spume (above). A cargo boat, past the Tail o’ the Bank anchorage, is heading south (below) past Strone Point, on the far side of the Holy Loch from Hunter’s Quay, a sneeze north of Dunoon.

The ‘black Lubianka’ and tower of the Hunterston Nuclear Power Station dominates the Ayrshire coast. The pretty wooded hills to either side of Gourock (below) look busily populated.

The long headland of Gourock comes to its point in the distance (below), with the pierhead for the ferry on the far side of it.

The Cowal hills around the Holy Loch, the ‘Arrochar Alps, peaks visible to the north (below), the end of the Rosneath peninsula at Kilcreggan – even Goat Fell on Arran to the south is visible – combine to make the route a beautiful one.

The Argyll Flyer drives strongly and purposefully on, wasting no time. She has a bit of a side-to-side rocking motion that has unsettled some passengers. This feels to us like something that would stabilise at greater speed. We inquire. Yes, there is a speed limit – rightly, because of shipping and other ferries passing and coming in to dock. Argyll Flyer cannot legally travel at more than 12 knots. She can do up to 22 knots and is designed to drive forwards in a semi planing mode she cannot employ on this route. She was built to be stable in the open sea at speeds appropriate to the offshore route she served to  the legendary Gaelic isles of the Aran chain.

She was also designed to come alongside to berth and embark at a pontoon.

One has to ask ask about the seagoing and boat-handling experience and know-how which informed the person who bought this boat for this route. She’s a good boat, a comfortable and attractive one, her upper deck is right for accessing the beauty of the passage – and the crew love her. But she does not seem the right boat for this job.

Coming in to Gourock is also a heavily manual operation, featuring much work from the crew with boathooks (below) to get her round to present her stern to the linkspan.

And then there’s Gourock pierhead…

The Dunoon terminal area, if it gets an attractive, purpose built and properly functioning building taking advantage of landward and Clydeward views, will eventually be especially attractive. It’s in a great location, with the inviting  Rock Cafe to hand – and a little CoastCoffee tardis hanging over the water on piles, just beside the current unmanned terminal office and opposite the pensive Highland Mary.

There is the lovely old pier to come in beside, the Castle (below), with the mature trees and shrubs in its grounds and Highland Mary (above right) on her bald velvet green mound to the immediate south – all offering a distinctive charm that make one forget the faded hicksville of the town centre, a suitable case for long-term treatment.

From the Dunoon terminal area, you can catch the bright, confident West Coast Motors buses (below):

• south to Innellan and Castle Toward, with its Actual Reality activity centre;
• north to the Hunters Quay Holiday Village in its grand sweeping grounds;
• west across Cowal to the timeless prettiness of the hilly lochside village of Tighnabruaich on the Kyles of Bute – and on to the spectacular Portavadie Marina resort, with its cafes, restaurants, bars, waterside houses, lodges, five star apartments (each with a sauna in one of the bathrooms) and an entire spa building to come.

But the Gourock terminal… charmless does not come close.

This is less a reception area for travellers than it is a cross between an industrial back yard and an obstacle course (above).  There are huge bins bang on the pier above the linkspan (below). The grim CalMac HQ runs long alongside and the entire area is cluttered everywhere with moveable tubular metal barriers. How on earth is one supposed to know where to go for what reason? It looks like the result of a disaster – and it is – the disaster of no planning and no awareness of the complex needs of humanity for freedom, choice, information, function, visual pleasure and physical comfort.

Gourock pierhead is a place undesigned to ‘keep them doggies rollin’. Rawhide is all it aims to conduct.

If people are to be encouraged to use public transport of all kinds, it has to be seen as a genuine service industry, not a livestock carrier. The approaches must be inviting; the facilities fit for purpose, attractive and usable; the mode of transport and what it offers appropriate to what it is and where it is; and everything and everyone working in any aspect of it must put users and their needs and comfort first.

At both terminals on this route, there is an all but total failure to understand just what those needs and comforts are. But the Dunoon terminal, even now, has some charm. Gourock is brutally ugly.

The key attraction  of Gourock is its railhead, with the direct access it offers passengers from Cowal to the heart of Glasgow.

People complain about the failure of connecting trains to wait for late ferries – but this is neither the point nor is it achievable. Train timetables are set to enable onward connections with other trains and buses that a significant number of passengers tend to use. If the Gourock train waits for a late arriving  ferry from Dunoon in the current schedules, some passengers may make the train who would otherwise have missed it. Other users  – residents of Gourock, Greenock, Langbank, Port Glasgow, Paisley etc – will miss onward connections in Glasgow.

The timetabling of the ferries is the key, allowing more time to get from boat to train.

It takes the Argyll Flyer some time to dock and allow disembarkation. Then it’s a trawl up the slipway, the deciphering of a route through the morass of gubbins on the pierhead to a point of access to the train platform – and then it’s actually a long haul down that platform (above) to the train. In some of the current tight scheduled connections, only the fit and fast will make it – and that’s when everything is on time.

I’m in a wheelchair. I’m using a stick. I have a zimmer frame. I’m managing a push chair. I have a child or a senior in hand. I’m carrying and wheeling the cases from my holiday. I’ve got shopping bags. I am a foot passenger. How – seriously – am I going to get from boat to train or train to boat in some of the times the schedule allows, either at all or without very real stress and the sort of effort than can be damaging to health?

And then I’m a senior. I have a Travel Pass. I need a concession ticket for the train. No problem, Tickets can be bought on the train.

Sorry. Not for me they can’t.

If I need a concession ticket I have to walk a lot further than the train. I have to go on across the railhead, down a passage, into the station concourse and to the ticket desk, possibly to queue, then to produce my Travel Pass and buy my ticket. Then I have to retrace those steps, or wheel tracks – back to the far platform and onto the train.

This is a system that predates the enlightenment. It is wholly unacceptable. It does not even consider the needs of those who pay to use the service. It prioritises bureaucracy and supports lack of investment in the necessary onboard ticketing software and hardware.

The Scottish Government is talking about the introduction of multimode travel swipe cards, like London’s successful Oyster Card and Brisbane’s touch-on-touch-off GO Card for ferries and buses. If they don’t get onboard rail concession ticketing sorted now, any Oyster Card system will have the same inability and will only further disadvantage those whose necessary convenience is already at a discount.

Because the Argyll Flyer was delayed in meeting its schedule on Monday afternoon, our planned return to Dunoon by the other ferry on the route, the twin hulled MV Ali Cat (above – also with an outdoor upper deck), couldn’t be done and we took the return trip on the Flyer, with the same blend of pleasure and irritation at the amount of fiddling about it takes to get her into position for disembarkation.

Since the Ali Cat has been doing the Gourock Dunoon run, off and on, for some years, we have travelled on her before – but not into the new Dunoon terminal – which we will check out. She is an ugly tub – with passenger doors on each side that, wildly out of place (above), look as if someone has made a trip to B&Q in an emergency repair. They are disturbingly domestic and temporary-measure-ish. Last time we were on the Ali Cat, she was pretty tired looking – and feeling – inside but we’ll wait to see if things have changed in her new incarnation for Argyll Ferries.

Argyll Flyer can carry a maximum of around 230 passengers and the Ali Cat up to 250. The route takes 20 or 25 minutes one way, depending which boat you’re on. If either were full, staff would need to process onboard ticketing at the rate of 10 passengers a minute or one every 6 seconds, non-stop. Hmmm. Bring on the Oyster Cards.

The verdict

With good signage – for drop off/pick  up  traffic, for foot passengers approaching from either direction and simply to announce unequivocally – triumphantly even – the location of the ferry; with really attractive terminal facilities; and with the adjoining and beautiful Victorian pier alongside (below) , the Dunoon ferry terminal could be a genuinely attractive and welcoming place for arrival and departure. Non-travellers would  spend time there.

It is well placed for access to both the centre and the southern fringe of the town with its own village environment; and to the Castle Museum and the walks in the grounds. Its direct bus connections from the head of the slipway to attractive places south, north and west, open up a range of additional purposes for folk to use a car-free service.

Gourock pierhead is an experience to be endured rather than enjoyed. The scheduling of the ferry arrivals and departures to allow comfortably achievable connections between boat and train cannot be beyond intelligent implementation. Similarly the current inability to do concession ticketing onboard the trains can be resolved. All of these elements, in the interests of this service and of Gourock itself must be addressed.

Gourock and its surroundings (below) have much to offer. The town has some enticing restaurants – like Cafe Continental, not far uphill across the road from the rail station. The food’s OK but the view’s the point. It has an extension at the rear, hanging above and overlooking the Clyde. And the view from Tower Hill above Gourock commands the wonderfully complex Clyde waterway system like no other.

But first of all, this is a passenger ferry service. The destinations, good or bad, are a necessarily conjoined issue but not the heart of the matter. A related side issue here is that the Flyer at least is not yet carrying literature on Dunoon (rear view of Riverside Swimming Pool below) or Gourock. That lack is unlikely to be down to Argyll Ferries. Local marketing associations should have been on to this long ago and should be working with Argyll Ferries to have both boats carry flat screen televisions, with ticker tape news headlines and showing videos on their two destinations.

The Argyll Flyer is a good boat and fun to travel on. It is not ideally matched to this route, with the necessary speed limit affecting its motion. It is very ill matched indeed to linkspan operations and it is hard to see how this can be much improved. They talk of an imminent new long gangway from the linkspan to the boat, that locks on to the stern of the Flyer. If the boat has a sideways rocking motion in the water as it lies for embarcation and disembarcation, that may torque and twist such a gangway.

Each of these two boats offers a fair amount of windage for their weight, which has to make docking in winter weather, in the physical circumstances at the Dunoon linkspan, problematic on occasion.

We accept without equivocation that the lateness of the tender process and the consequent insanely short deadline for the commencement of the new service left the operator with little choice as to the boats they could get to run the route.

The responsibility for this avoidable shambles is fully political, down to ineptitude in performance and electoral manipulation on the part of the minster mainly concerned – the former Transport Minister, Stewart Stevenson – and, squarely, on the part of the Scottish Government as a whole.

We supported – and do support – the logic that has led to Dunoon having one town-centre to town-centre passenger ferry service and one just-out-of-town vehicle and occasional passenger service.

But we do not support services inappropriate to their context or support ‘facilities’ from another age in approximation, thoughtlessness and carelessness. If Scotland cannot get this sort of thing when it has the necessary authority, it’s a poor argument for independence.

Lynda Henderson

The photographs accompanying this article are by Lynda Henderson – and the shot of the water conditions during the trip is a piece of mischief. The water was modestly on the choppy side but, for fun, this shot was taken with a close up lens on a section of the water at the edge of the stern wake of the Flyer. The Flyer was not surfing its passengers back to Dunoon.