Pentland Ferries
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| Private Limited with share capital | |
| Industry | Transport |
| Founded | 1997 |
| Headquarters | Orkney, Scotland |
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Area served
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Orkney |
| Services | Ferries |
| Owner | Andrew Banks |
| Website | http://www.pentlandferries.co.uk/ |
Pentland Ferries is a privately owned, family company which has operated a ferry service between Gills Bay in Caithness, Scotland and St Margaret's Hope on South Ronaldsay in Orkney since May 2001. The company is one of only two major vehicle ferry operators plying within Scotland which are not subsidised by the Scottish Government or local authorities.
Pentland Ferries was founded by its present managing director, Andrew Banks, in 1997. In October that year he purchased the Caledonian MacBrayne passenger and vehicle ferry Iona. Banks obtained a 99-year lease on the Gills Bay terminal, about 3 miles west of John o' Groats. After two years work improving the site, and further work at St Margaret's Hope, he started operating the short sea crossing with Pentalina B in May 2001. The service was summer only in its first few seasons, but is now operated year-round with the custom built passenger and vehicle catamaran Pentalina.
An earlier attempt to operate the short sea crossing between Caithness and Orkney had been abandoned in 1989, mainly because of the exposed conditions at Gills Bay.
The current catamaran ferry, MV Pentalina, was built in the Philippines for the Pentland Firth, where it entered service in March 2009. The ferry has a capacity of 350 passengers and either 32 cars and 8 articulated lorries or an increased number of cars, with a service speed of 18 knots.
The original ferry, former Caledonian MacBrayne vessel MV Iona, was purchased in October 1997 and renamed Pentalina-B. The first drive-through MacBrayne ferry with both bow and stern doors, she carried around 50 cars, or 4–5 articulated lorries and fewer cars. During the off-seasons since 2006, she was chartered out, carrying livestock across the channel from Dover and providing freight relief for CalMac. She was sold to an owner in Cape Verde in late 2009.
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Wikipedia