This attractive turntable ferry had a complicated career – serving with both the CSP and David MacBrayne Ltd under different names and on different stations – and it avoids untold complication if we grant her two separate histories.

The 500-yard passage from Kyle of Lochalsh in Wester Ross to Kyleakin on the Isle of Skye was neither the oldest nor shortest crossing to the Misty Isle, but it was the most convenient – neither port was besieged by mountains, like Glenelg or Kylerhea, and the ferry became still more important once the railway to Strome from Inverness was extended to Kyle in 1898. Mighty piers were built and the once-tiny hamlet became a bustling community.

Till 1897 the respective County Councils of Inverness and Ross ran the sailing or rowboats on the Kyleakin passage but in that year the LMS Railway Co. Ltd took over the craft, leasing the operation to a succession of private individuals. The first motor-launch only took on the crossing in 1914 and did not even have a name. She towed cattle and vehicles across on floats as required. Another unnamed motor-boat came from Oban in 1916, and then another called the KYLE, which passed to David MacBrayne Ltd in 1938 when they took on the lease of the Kyleakin ferry (the LMS, of course, having acquired a 50% share in the Company.)

The launch SKYE was acquired in 1922 and stayed on the Kyleakin service till, in 1951, she was sold to a Greenock owner. She was joined in 1930 by the timber-hulled KYLEAKIN (I), the first of many tur5ntable ferries to serve the Isle of Skye. This ingenious device seems to have been invented at Ballachulish before the Great War; it allowed side-loading off concrete slipways at any state of tide, and the later turntable ferries could carry considerable loads. Another advantage was that motorists did not need to reverse off the pivoting vehicle-deck.

KYLEAKIN could only carry one car; the larger MOIL (1936), though still built of wood, could carry two. She was named after the romantic ruined castle that stands sentinel over Kyleakin's cove. In 1942 a steel-hulled turntable ferry was placed on the station: CUILLIN, built by Denny's of Dumbarton, could also take two cars.

On 1^st January 1945 the LMS took full control of the Kyleakin ferry on expiry of the lease to David MacBrayne Ltd and management of this West Highland outposed passed to its wholly owned shipping subsidiary, the Caledonian Steam Packet Co. Ltd. (Even more remarkably, they maintained control after the advent of the Scottish Transport Group and up till 1973, while MacBraynes were forced from 1969 to withdraw entirely from the Clyde.)

By then the explosion in privatec car ownership and the rise of mass-tourism had turned the brisk Kyleakin ferry crossing into a licence to print money, and the CSP had mounting difficulty throuh the 50s and 60s in maintaining its car-carrying capacity.

LOCHALSH (I) arrived in June 1951 and – another Denny's product – was virtually a repeat of the wartime CUILLIN; none of these early car ferries boasted any covered passenger accmmodation – quite a consideration in the excessive West Highland weather. But the Denny-built PORTREE (I), which took up the station in Easter 1952, was bigger and much more sophisticated; she could carry four cars, had an ample covered saloon for passengers – topped by two enclosed steering positions – and her Perkins diesels drove twin screws. She was a great success and, as traffic continued to expand, was joined by a Denny-built sister, BROADFORD (I) early in 1954.

Our subject – which would be the last turntable ferry in the CalMac empire – was ordered from Ailsa of Troon late in 1956 and was formally registered as a CSP vessel on 18^th February 1957; the Company's name had just been revived in January, after almost a decade lost in the oblivion of the British Transport Commission. Though very similar in specification and profile to PORTREE and BROADFORD, the new LOCHALSH could carry six cars on her turntable and, of trimmer finish and better proportions, was quite a pleasing craft, proudly flying the restored CSP pennant from her neat foremast amidst a nicely flared bow.

She joined the KYLEAKIN fleet in April 1957; the older LOCHALSH, renamed LOCHALSH II to clear wa for the newcomer, was retained through the season, but when the larger ferries coped readily with the traffic offering she was returned to the BTC in the spring of 1959. LOCHALSH II ended up as a workboat on the Caledonian Canal, minus her turntable and boasting a crane, and served into the 1990s.

Her 6-car successor proved an extremely reliable ferry on the Kyleakin station and no one could have forseen how demand would simply overwhelm these small side-loading craft as the 1960s progressed. The CSP had neither the capital nor, frankly, the vision to build the large modern vessels the station really needed and it took the advent of the STG to confront the realities of the station. (By 1969, the queues in high summer at Kyle could extend for a mile and more, and a 12-hour wait to cross was not uncommon.)

LOCHALSH in her turn was renamed LOCHALSH II early in 1970 as her name was required for one of the vast double-ended twins being built for Kyleakin. It was thought David MacBrayne Ltd might find a use for her and her surviving turntable sister, KYLEAKIN (II) “but these craft, with their turntables, were considered old-fashioned,” records Iain MacArthur, “and were unable to handle large heavy loads.”

The 1957 ferry became pretty marginal at Kyle once the 28-car KYLEAKIN (III) entered service in August 1970. The older KYLEAKIN – which had also been renamed – was sent on charter to relieve MacBrayne's ex-Ballachulish ferry SCALPAY at the eponymous, bustling island off the east coast of Harris in April 1970, and in April 1971 LOCHALSH II sailed north on the same duty. Overhaul revealed that the timber-hulled SCALPAY had reached the end of her useful like; the bigger, more powerful ex-Kyleakin ferry was a big success, and the transfer became permanent. LOCHALSH II duly passed into the MacBrayne fleet in October 1970, and energed from a major refit at Shandon as SCALPAY (II). Her history is continued under that name.