SeaCat

Seacat operates a number of ferry services on the English Channel and Irish Sea routes. This op looks at all the routes between the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I hope is helpful, and in particular at our experience of the Seacat service. (Ignore the pic that goes with this op - Seacat does have twin hulls but is otherwise nothing like the craft shown).

It seems that it is only a few years ago that the only transport ...
...hours.

Seacat links Belfast and Troon with a crossing time of just under three hours, using a fast ferry. Seacat originally used Stranraer as its Scottish base but moved a few years ago to Troon.

(There was a summer service between Ballycastle in Co Antrim and Campbeltown in Kintyre but that has ceased operating, though the respective local authorities are trying to resuscitate it.)

As a final part of ... more

Seacat operates a number of ferry services on the English Channel and Irish Sea routes. This op looks at all the routes between the west coast of Scotland and Northern Ireland, which I hope is helpful, and in particular at our experience of the Seacat service. (Ignore the pic that goes with this op - Seacat does have twin hulls but is otherwise nothing like the craft shown).

It seems that it is only a few years ago that the only transport links between the two countries were, for passengers, Glasgow-Belfast on an overnight crossing of 9 hours! sharing the ship with cattle and other miscellaneous cargo and for passengers and cars, Belfast-Ardrossan on a daylight sailing (4 hours) and Larne-Stranraer at about 2 ½ hours. Not surprisingly, as the Larne-Stranraer ships were owned by British Rail, trains operated to the quayside at both ports. However, Stranraer is about 100 miles form the motorway routes south into England and the overnight sea crossings between Belfast and Heysham and Liverpool were also popular. Air travel was from Glasgow to Belfast by British Airways and Belfast to Edinburgh by Cambrian Airways (who!)

With the demise of the overnight crossings, as roll on roll off ferries became more common and the appearance of the fast ferries (normally catamaran style craft), travel on the North Channel (the narrow bit of the Irish Sea between Scotland and NI) has been transformed.

Now there are three main operators and several different routes:

P&O links Cairnryan (about six miles from Stranraer) with Larne with fast ferries (1 hour) and conventional ferries just over two hours. For cars and passengers this is the shortest crossing. During summer of 2003, P&O also operated a fast ferry between Larne and Troon, normally a cargo only route.

Stena links Stranraer and Belfast with conventional ferries (just over three hours) and a large fast ferry known as Stena Voyager. (One of the captains on the route is called James Kirk!). Crossing time is just under two hours.

Seacat links Belfast and Troon with a crossing time of just under three hours, using a fast ferry. Seacat originally used Stranraer as its Scottish base but moved a few years ago to Troon.

(There was a summer service between Ballycastle in Co Antrim and Campbeltown in Kintyre but that has ceased operating, though the respective local authorities are trying to resuscitate it.)

As a final part of setting the scene, a brief word on the choice of ferry port, very closely linked to ongoing transport.

Stranraer is linked by a trunk road to the M74 for access into central Scotland and England. It’s a mixture of single and dual carriageway and is very popular with lorries. Depending on how you drive it can take a couple of hours to get to the M74. The A77 links Stranraer north to Ayr (single carriageway) – also popular with lorries. After Ayr it becomes dual carriageway and then motorway into central Glasgow where it links directly with M8 and M80. There are also good links to the M74. Scotrail services still oprate into Stranraer.

Cairnryan is about six miles from Stranraer with whom it shares the same road links.

Troon is just north of Ayr, near Prestwick airport which is once again an international gateway especially for budget airlines. Until recently, Troon was primarily a fishing port, with a rapidly growing leisure industry through a large marina. Now it is a popular ferry port due to its proximity to the A77 dual carriageway and thus into the whole of the Scottish motorway network. It also has the advantage to motorists of cutting off the worst part of the A77 road north from Stranraer. A train service links Troon (a town centre station)to points north Eg Glasgow and south eg Ayr.

On the other side, Larne is still very popular with its very short crossing times. It takes about half and hour to link in to the NI motorway network. Northern Ireland Railways still serves the port. Larne is an excellent place to start a touring holiday especially if you are planning to go north immediately, along the Antrim Coast Road.

The port of Belfast is served directly by the NI motorway network. Access is easy. Stena and Seacat each has its own, terminals about a mile apart. For foot passengers the Seacat terminal is only ten minutes walk into the City Centre. Service buses into Belfast City Centre meet both ferries.

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Now what about Seacat on this route?

As mentioned earlier Seacat operated originally from Stranraer to Belfast. They were the first operator to use fast ferries on the crossing and in fact used two identical ones on what was virtually a constant shuttle - cars and passenger only – no lorries. They also pioneered the reopening of Belfast as a passenger port. Crossing time was just under two hours and with the absence of lorries they could unload within ten minutes. It was drive on one end and off the other. This competition certainly put a bomb under Stena and P&O. Within a few years both operators had introduced new conventional ferries (instead of redundant English Channel cast offs) and their own fast ferries. As often happens, the pioneer of change suffered and Seacat eventually reduced the service to one ferry and then moved its Scottish base to Troon, presumably giving up the business heading to England but hoping to capture more of the business heading into Scotland. Troon is only a few minutes from the A77 dual carriageway.

As regulars on the North Channel routes (about 56 years), we have tried all options including fairly recently, easyjet and Go (now absorbed by easyjet) which serve Belfast from both Glasgow and Edinburgh. For many years we opted for the Stranraer-Befast route, initially with Seacat and then with Stena. We normally take a car but have occaionally travelled as foot passengers. On a recent trip we decided to try Troon-Belfast mainly due to the convenience of departure times, but also the shorter car journey.

There is no doubt of the convenience of Troon for cars. It took just an hour and a half from Edinburgh with only the last few miles off motorways or dual carriageways. Now Troon harbour is not a big ferry port and it shows! The Seacat terminal building looks like a couple of portacabins stuck together. Seating capacity is very limited and there's a very small snack bar. Much more comfortable sitting in the cold, in the dark, in your car. A bit anti-social to keep the engine running. (Pity Seacat hadn’t been able to bring their terminal building from Stranraer – it was two storey and, relatively speaking, comfortable and spacious.)

The ferry arrived in from Belfast about 30 mins late and took a very long time to unload passengers and cars. Due to the lack of investment in facilities at Troon passengers come off via the car deck and for safety reasons normally have to wait till all the cars are off. On this occasion the passengers had to wait on the quayside for about ten minutes – looking like sheep in a pen.

Eventually we were able to board. The craft now serving the route is called a Rapide. Its built with access at the rear only so cars have to do a 360 degree turn to get off. The space saved at the front of the craft has been utilised by a rather complex system of ramps forming a corkscrew where more cars are parked. That’s where we ended up. Several three point turns, hill starts and tightly packed together though that’s not too unusual for a busy car ferry.

Inside the Rapide the passenger accomodation is open plan. Ground floor is seating, loos, a self service café, snack bar, a small shop with newspapers and gift items a video longe for the kids and upstairs the bar with seating and loos. We choose what we thought would be a quieter part of the seating area but found that all the window seats seemed to damaged with broken armrests, no seat cushion worth speaking of and then we discovered that all the seats were like that. The interior desperately in need of refurbishment. Smoking is only permitted on the outside deck.

The ferry left about 30 mins late – the captain blaming adverse tidal conditions and the passenger services manager citing heavy passenger numbers earlier in the day. In essence the timetable assumes no passengers and a flat calm all the time!

The food available is a reasonably varied mix of pizzas , curries, salads sandwiches and biscuits. Both food outlets were very busy on departure but when it got quieter I went for a cup of tea. Unfortunately the staff seemed to have given up serving. There were enough of them scurring about but no one seemed interested in the queue that was now forming behind me. Eventually after asking one of them what was happening, service was restored, not that the tea could be recommended – just a hot, brown, non descript liquid (£1.20). What we think happened to the crew was that it was meal break time for them. Because they also operate as shore based staff, check in etc., the only time for breaks is when the ferry is at sea.

The rest of the crossing was uneventful – a bit of a roll at times but no one appeared to be sick. Arrived in Belfast about three hours later with sore bums but otherwise intact. But you’ve guessed it, how does the car get off – the same way it went on which means a lot of reversing down ramps and around corners. One driver I spoke to was very unhappy – he’d just passed his test having failed the previous three because of bad reversing. Eventually off the ferry and into the Belfast traffic – it was quiet. Experienced one of the benefits, for us, of arriving right in the centre of Belfast – its only ten minutes to our final destination.

At Belfast the terminal building is on two floors with adequate facilities including interenet access. Unfortunately foot passengers are no longer able to use a modern fully enclosed walkway to the craft and instead use a very traditional gangway which seems to vary in angle from 30 to 60 degrees depending on the state of the tide (progress indeed).

We tried to be clever on the return journey and arrived close to final check in time to avoid being sent up the corkscrew. It didn’t work – they pick out all the small cars (we have a Polo) and load them first. Crossing uneventful, about three hours, and as expected – virtually last off but soon on to the motorway and back in Edinburgh within an hour and a half.

One of the great attractions of travel between Scotland and Northern Ireland is the choice. Apart from the budget airline and BA there are three ferry operators and the option of several ports served. There’s a choice also of conventional ships or fast catamarans.

Prices can range from £90 to £275 for a car and four passengers, so make sure you shop around for the price. Each of the operators has its own web site and you can also try www.ferrysale.com. There are always special offers on the go with three, four and six day returns, super savers etc etc. On our recent trip, booked at short notice, we had to take two separate singles to get the best deal. Cheapest is travel during the night or on a traditonal (slow) ferry, remembering that Seacat is fast ferry only.

We were disappointed with Seacat. In a sense they are not that bad, but they had set such high standards when based at Stranraer and those standards have slipped considerably. For us we’ll go back to Stena (overall much better in all aspects)from Stranraer and put up with that extra car journey.

And a final final point – the ferries are popular with Rangers and Celtic fans who travel from NI for the matches every weekend during the season. NI based supporters of the two teams seem even more passionate about their teams than the Scots!Certainly be wary of NI – Scotland journeys on a Saturday morning and on a Saturday evening in the other direction. Things can be a bit boisterous especially if the teams happen to be playing each other, though there is an agreement that the opposing fans don’t travel on the same route.

Nov 03 Update - Seacat have announced that they are considering reverting to a summer only service to cut losses on the route.

Nov 03 Update (2) Recently travelled on Seacat again (timings suited an urgent journey) and took advantage of the first class lounge. Pay £5 per person in advance or on board and enjoy unlimited free tea, coffee and biscuits, complimentary newspapers and a dedicated member of staff who will get other food and drinks for you. Seats still uncomfortable but the upgrade is worth it.
 

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