Why cross to Dunoon on a boat that will not carry your car? Because it leaves Gourock a couple of minutes' walk from the Glasgow trains and lands in the middle of Dunoon, beside its Victorian pier. Until 27 January only one vessel is working the route, so expect an hourly boat rather than the usual half-hourly service, with a bus instead of the mid-morning sailing.
CalMac single-vessel timetable: summer sheet for 24 August – 18 October 2026 and winter sheet for 19 October 2026 – 27 January 2027, both last updated 7 September 2026 and carrying the same boat times. Read on calmac.co.uk and checked against CalMac's sailing data on 7 October 2026. CalMac — Gourock-Dunoon single-vessel timetables (PDF) · 2026-10-07
What does a town do when its car ferry becomes a foot ferry? For Dunoon the change came in the summer of 2011. Until then Caledonian MacBrayne, and later its sister company Cowal Ferries, had carried cars as well as people between the two town centres. After a European Commission ruling on state aid limited the subsidy to foot passengers, the route was retendered, and two small fast boats, the Argyll Flyer and the Ali Cat, took it over under the Argyll Ferries name. They have been CalMac-branded since early 2019.
Is the boat worth it without a car? For anyone heading to or from Glasgow it usually is. The crossing takes 25 minutes, the Gourock end is next to the railway station, and the Dunoon end puts you in the town centre with buses waiting opposite. The service runs from just after six in the morning until well past midnight at weekends.
Why is it hourly at the moment? Normally two vessels share the work, giving a boat roughly every half hour for much of the day. This autumn the Ali Cat went for overhaul early so that upgrades could be fitted, and from 13 November the Argyll Flyer comes out for an extended improvement programme, so a single boat sails the route until 27 January.
An adult crosses for £6.40, or £12.80 return. The child return is printed as £6.80 on both CalMac's web page and its fare sheet, forty pence more than two child singles, so two singles are the cheaper buy for a child coming back the same season. Children under five travel free, and so do bicycles, though you still add the bike to your booking.
With an SPT Ferry Card the fare drops to £2.50 single or £4.00 return, and a companion travelling alongside pays £3.20 or £6.40. Every ticket is valid for a season rather than a single sailing: summer tickets expire after 18 October and cannot be changed or refunded.
| Adult (16+), single | £ 6.40 |
| Adult (16+), return | £ 12.80 |
| Child (5–15), single | £ 3.20 |
| Child (5–15), return | £ 6.80 |
| Infant (0–4) | Free |
| Bicycle | Free |
| SPT Ferry Card, single | £ 2.50 |
| SPT Ferry Card, return | £ 4 |
| SPT companion, single | £ 3.20 |
| SPT companion, return | £ 6.40 |
Summer 2026 fares, valid from 27 March 2026; CalMac has published no separate winter fares. Read on 7 October 2026. CalMac — Gourock-Dunoon fares, summer 2026 (PDF) · 2026-10-07
Westward over the firth, the boat links Inverclyde's railhead with Dunoon, on the Cowal peninsula in Argyll and Bute.
The Gourock building is shared with CalMac's other foot ferry, the short hop to Kilcreggan on the Rosneath peninsula. From Dunoon, roads lead on through Cowal to the Colintraive crossing to Bute and to Portavadie for Kintyre, while the Rothesay ferry reaches Bute from Wemyss Bay, further down the Inverclyde coast.
The Gourock terminal is next to Gourock station, the end of the line from Glasgow, and a signposted path gets you from platform to gangway in a minute or two. Inside there is a waiting room with free wifi. McGill's buses to Glasgow and Largs and a taxi rank are at the station entrance, and Sainsbury's, five minutes away, has the nearest cash machine.
You board over the linkspan by a gangway. Roadworks on the A8 and A78 are expected to last until July 2027, so allow extra time if you are driving or catching a bus to the terminal.
At Dunoon the passenger boats berth at the linkspan beside the old pier, not at the timber pier itself, and you step ashore by a short gangway lowered from the stern. From there, signed paths climb to where the buses wait at the top of the pier, and carry on into the middle of Dunoon.
The waiting area is in a portable cabin with toilets and wifi. West Coast Motors buses stop opposite the slipway, taxis wait beside the pier, and beside the terminal is a pay-and-display car park, a few of whose bays are reserved for disabled drivers.
The station is a minute or two from the gangway. CalMac warns that some train times leave too little time to change, so do not count on a tight connection.
Turnarounds are quick: CalMac asks passengers to be waiting with a ticket ready for scanning as soon as the boat comes alongside, and the port pages suggest arriving ten minutes early.
From Monday to Saturday the 10:15 from Gourock and 10:45 from Dunoon are replaced by a shuttle bus to the car-ferry terminals. The bus does not board that ferry, and its fare is separate.
At the end of the week, Friday and Saturday, the final departures are 00:55 from Gourock and 01:20 from Dunoon, handy after an evening in Glasgow.
Bikes cost nothing, but add them to the booking. Cyclists arriving by train will find National Cycle Route 75 running past the station entrance at Gourock.
Texting CALMAC SUBSCRIBE 01 to 60030 gets you this route's disruption messages for six months.
The boats arrive beside one of the Clyde's great survivors. Historic Environment Scotland lists Dunoon Pier at Category A and calls it the best surviving timber ferry and steamer pier in Scotland. The first timber pier went up in 1835, a few years before the railway reached Gourock in 1841, and the present inverted-F layout dates from an enlargement of 1896 to 1898, complete with an ornate waiting room and a signal tower that once guided arriving steamers with coloured discs.
Transport Scotland's figures explain why the route is subsidised. In the year to September 2022 it ran at a deficit of about £3.4 million, with fares covering roughly 15% of costs. Both boats are held to 12 knots within the firth, so the Argyll Flyer's extra speed makes no difference to the timetable.
No. CalMac's boats carry foot passengers and bikes only. Vehicles cross with another operator from McInroy's Point, a separate terminal west of Gourock.
From Monday to Saturday that slot is used to refuel the single vessel, so CalMac runs a shuttle bus at 10:15 from Gourock and 10:45 from Dunoon to the car-ferry terminals instead. You pay that ferry's fare separately.
Yes. The 00:55 from Gourock, in the early hours of Sunday, reaches Dunoon at 01:20, and Friday nights work the same way. On other nights the last boat from Gourock is the 22:40, except on Tuesdays, when it is the 21:40.
Once an hour each way: from Gourock at twenty past the hour between 08:20 and 22:20, and from Dunoon at ten to the hour between 08:50 and 22:50.
On the summer 2026 fares, yes: a child single is £3.20 and the child return £6.80, the same figure on CalMac's web page and its fare sheet.
CalMac's timetable list shows two-vessel sailings from 28 January to 10 February and again from 6 to 9 March. The rest of the winter, until 25 March, is single-vessel.
CalMac stands the route down altogether on the 25th and again on 1 January. Christmas Eve and Hogmanay stop early, at 20:15 from Gourock and 20:45 from Dunoon, and for Boxing Day and 2 January check CalMac's live data before setting out.