The Opportunities in Retirement group in Largs proved they were ship shape after an interesting talk!

The May OIR General Meeting was very well attended when guest speaker, Lorna Spencer, spoke on ‘The Other Side of Cal Mac’.

Lorna is a Director of Harbours and Piers for Caledonian Maritime Assets (CMAL).

This new structure evolved in 2006 to comply with European guidelines. It resulted in the split of Caledonian MacBrayne Ltd. into two companies; an asset owning company Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL) and a new operating company CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL).

CMAL owns the ferries, ports, harbours and infrastructure for the ferry services serving the West of Scotland and the Firth of Clyde.

It is a wholly public corporation of the Scottish Government with Scottish Ministers as sole shareholders. Their goal is to provide modern, sustainable and reliable ferries and up to date docking facilities.

Lorna showed recent projects of work carried out at Largs Pier and Wemyss Bay Pier and also the present redevelopment at Brodick Terminal which is hoped to be completed this summer.

She spoke of the challenges CMAL has to face with the ageing infrastructure, remote island locations, community involvement and of course the West of Scotland weather.

Some of her interesting current projects include the development of new hybrid ferries, the third of which, MV Catriona, was recently launched from Fergusons yard on the Clyde.

This was a very informative talk and illustrated the diversity of the role that Lorna undertakes to ensure the smooth sailing of our Western Isles ferries.

The next general meeting will be the Annual General Meeting on Wednesday 8 June at 2pm.