Mallaig

Latitude: 56° 59'N
Longitude: 05° 49'W
Country: Scotland

Ownership: Mallaig Harbour Authority
Type: Trust
Usage: Leisure, Fishing, Commercial, Ferry Terminal
Contact name: Robert Macmillan, Port Manager, or James McLean, Harbour Master
Address: Harbour Office, Mallaig, Inverness-shire, PH41 4QB
Telephone no: 01687 462154
E-mail: info@mallaigharbourauthority.com

About Mallaig

Mallaig is a major west coast fishing port and the focus for a network of ferry services to Skye, to the Small Isles, and to the Knoydart peninsula.

It was the coming of the railway in 1901 together with the building of the steamer pier that led to the growth of the town.

Until this century the normal crossing to Skye was by the narrows of Kylerhea, near Glenelg, where cattle from the island would swim across tied nose to tail behind a boat. Passengers and mail for the Small Isles used the pier at Rhu point, near Arisaig. When the railway opened all this changed and the mail steamers sailed from Mallaig, with regular departures to Armadale and Portree on Skye, to Lochboisdale and Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides, Raasay, the Small Isles, and to mainland destinations such as Glenelg, Kyle and Applecross. This network survived until the 1970s, when more and more passengers and freight for the islands was arriving by car and lorry at the ports. The Barra and Lochboisdale service moved to the more southerly departure point of Oban, while the shorter routes to Skye from Kyle of Lochalsh and to Stornoway from Ullapool became more important. For many years a summer only service survived between Mallaig and Kyle of Lochalsh, but this ended in 1999.

In November 2000 the new ferry Lochnevis replaced the Lochmor, providing a service to the Small Isles and a winter car-ferry link with Skye. In summer the large car ferry Coruisk crosses to Armadale using the roll-on, roll-off facility completed in 1994 and which made possible a more frequent service to Skye than ever before.

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