MV Sound of Gigha was a pioneering roll-on/roll-off (ro-ro) ferry operating on the west coast of Scotland.

Oban civil engineer and merchant seaman John Rose and Gavin Hamilton, a Lanarkshire landscape gardener recognised that the future of inter-island ferry trade was for freight to be carried by lorries loaded onto a ro-ro ship.

In service, beach landings, sometimes in gale-force winds, took a heavy toll on the hull, resulting in shell fractures and jamming of the port rudder.

[1] Realising that the future safety of such roll-on/roll-off ferries depended on identifying the causes of the accident, Board of Trade Inspector, Walter Weyndling, mounted a newspaper campaign to hold a Court of Inquiry.

Isle of Gigha arrived in the middle of the nationwide seamen's strike and quickly found herself busy running emergency supplies to the islands.

During this time, Arthur MacEachern was skipper of the Jura ferry, continuing on the replacement vessel, MV Eilean Dhiura until he retired in 2005.