Life as a marine engineer in minus 20 degrees and thick ice in the Canadian Pacific was recalled at Monday's Cumbrae Historical Society.
Because of an illness of the scheduled speaker, Alex Forrest saved the day and spoke about life as a marine engineer, intertwining with that of his colleague Captain Guy Robertson with whom he shared responsibility for overseeing the construction of CalMac's MV Finlaggan. 
Alex started his career at sea on steam ships with Shell tankers, transferring to Canadian Pacific ships, in the St Lawrence seaway with temperatures 20 degrees below and the ship ice-bound in 1.5m thick ice and needing an icebreaker to create a free passage. His cargo was 12,000 tons of bulk paper needing the hold to be kept ventilated to ensure it didn't deteriorate. Alex joined CalMac in 1990, serving on many of the familiar west coast ferries. He noted that it was important for car owners to make sure their windows were properly shut when accompanied by cattle! It took two years to build the Finlaggan in Gdsank and was designed to be able to take the large shipments of whisky lorries emanating from Islay. Its two 5,500 hp engines swallow 1400 litres of red diesel per hour. At 29m from waterline to mast tip it is too high to go under the Skye bridge. Alex now can be seen looking after the engines of the Paddle-steamer Waverley.
The next meeting will be on Monday 13 March when John McNeilly will talk about “A lookback at newspapers”. All welcome.