MR Macleod, managing director of Clydefast, takes Jerry Burke to task (July 20) for ignoring the potential for fast passenger ferries on the Clyde in his article (July 15). He also states that the present CalMac Gourock-Dunoon ferry service has ''no logic'' and accuses the Scottish Executive of pursuing a ''blinkered'' approach to fast ferries.
In fact, Jerry Burke has been well briefed by myself and others on the issue of fast ferries on the Clyde in general, and the Clydefast proposal in particular. I am sure that CalMac and the Scottish Executive are well-informed on these issues as well. The bottom line is that fast ferries are an irrelevance as far as the very real problems facing Clyde transport are concerned.
Fast ferries currently raise considerable economic, technical, and environmental issues. These problems have led BC Ferries, the major Canadian ferry operator, to decide this spring to sell its fast ferry fleet (at a considerable expected loss) even while its latest fast ferry was under construction. As the recent Bergen-Stavanger disaster indicates, fast ferries may raise safety issues as well.
Fast ferries are gas guzzlers and expensive to operate. They tend to be adopted where there are no easy alternatives to sea travel between large centres of population (such
as Bergen and Stavanger) and users are willing to pay significant fare premiums, and/
or governments are prepared to provide
heavy subsidies.
A 30-knot fast ferry may be a viable method of travel down the Norwegian fiord coastline, as Mr Macleod suggests. However, the Clydefast proposal has the fast ferry going up the Clyde and parallel-tracking (and competing with) road and rail alternatives over a considerable part of its journey. Train and even express bus are likely to be cheaper, faster, more frequent, and more reliable than a 30-knot fast ferry from Gourock to Glasgow. The Clydefast proposal does not make clear how it would encourage travellers to get out of their cars, trains, and buses and into a fast ferry, given its operational and economic limitations.
Any approach to transport futures on the Clyde would most sensibly start by seeing ferry routes as part of an integrated traffic network with existing railheads at Largs, Ardrossan, Wemyss Bay, and Gourock serving as key junctions, linking with frequent, cheap, conventional ferries.
The Clydefast proposal may raise unreasonable hopes and expectations as to what is possible for Clyde transport. It is also misleading for Mr Macleod to suggest that the present CalMac Gourock-Dunoon service has ''no logic''. Its logic is that it is an essential part of an integrated public transport network. Jerry Burke was well advised to ignore fast-ferry options in his article. And both CalMac and the Scottish Executive will serve the public interest by sticking to conventional transport options.
Professor Neil Kay,
Economics Department,
University of Strathclyde,
Glasgow.
July 21.
PERHAPS Alistair Macleod of Langbank suffers the daily frustration of looking over an empty River Clyde, and like me wonders
why the potential of this great waterway is being disregarded.
In all of the suggestions as to how to ease road congestion there is hardly a mention of transferring some of the road traffic on to our waterways. Suitable estuaries abound around the coast of Britain, and none more useable than the Clyde. By demonstrating the worth of this means of travel, we might stimulate
a new water-bus industry for ourselves
and others by building modern high-speed water-buses.
My only criticism of Clydefast's imaginative proposal is from a recent report in your newspaper that led me to believe that this company intends using vessels built in the US. This is a sad comment on our shipbuilding industry.
Surely the shipbuilders should at least be assessing the viability of this much-needed form of transport, whether for goods or passengers, plus the prospect of a new market? It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that Government money should be forthcoming to prime the pump for three fast ferries to be built to Clydefast's innovative specifications, and preferably in a small shipyard. It wouldn't bust the Prescott bank to get this show on the water.
George Wyllie,
9 McPherson Drive,
Gourock.
July 21.
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