Our group of members, friends and partners arrived on a sunny but cold and windy day at Holyhead. We split into 2 groups, one group going directly to the Maritime Museum with John Cave, Secretary and Richard Burnell, Vice Chairman, acting as guides. There are 2 parts to the museum, the one part depicting the history of the port of Holyhead and its close associations with Liverpool and the Blue Funnel Line and the second part illustrating the Holyhead involvement in the 1st and 2nd World Wars. Our guides were well versed in their subjects and there were a lot of artefacts and pictures on show.
The second group was taken by Stena Line bus for a tour of the dock estate with Alan Williams, Terminal Passenger manager as Guide. He took us through the stages of development of the port and how various areas of land had been purchased for the marshalling areas. The walkway built in Germany and brought to Holyhead for the benefit of pedestrians to walk from the town to the dock was pointed out. We arrived at the Stena Terminal and taken on board the HSS Stena Adventurer to visit the bridge. Some time was spent there with a duty captain who talked us through the docking, undocking and sailing procedures. Various screens were highlighted for us to see the Gas turbine engines, the locking clamps that keep the vessel tied to the quayside and the many other CCTV camera points.
We wish to thank Stena Line and staff for their welcome to our group and for giving us so much of their time to learn so much about Holyhead and the HSS Stena Adventurer, particular thanks to Alan Williams, his driver Brian, and the duty Captain and officers.
We also wish to thank John Cave and Richard Burnell of the Museum for making the visit such an interesting and varied one. The museum was certainly a very well presented one and one that I am sure will be visited by many more people.