HSS
Martin Cleaver
Harwich (due there at about 7:30 pm). It was 1 am before the passengers were
sent ashore to hotels without their cars. By 2 am they had managed to berth
the vessel, but the cars had to stay on board. So next morning the cars had
to be unloaded and the staff locally were still telling callers that the
Discovery would sail more or less on time with a full complement. However
when we (!) turned up to sail, Stena had decided that the vessel would sail
back to Holland empty. They had run out of hamburgers amd the crew was tired
:-(
Of course since the HSS came and the British crews were sacked there is no
way of supplying the ship from the British end and everything is run from
Holland, with a consequent lack of communication. It's all very frustrating
and ridiculous that Stena has no contingency plans. After the week out in
the Spring after the Discovery was put out of action by a wave, and the
scares on Felixstowe beach (huge waves washing away holidaymakers), one
wonders whether the HSS was such a wonderful idea.
Rgds
Martin Cleaver
Martin Cleaver
Gordon Brown
<mcle...@altavista.net> put fingers to keyboard and typed:
>The Stena Discovery caused havoc Sunday night when it failed to berth in
>Harwich (due there at about 7:30 pm). It was 1 am before the passengers were
>sent ashore to hotels without their cars. By 2 am they had managed to berth
>the vessel, but the cars had to stay on board. So next morning the cars had
>to be unloaded and the staff locally were still telling callers that the
>Discovery would sail more or less on time with a full complement. However
>when we (!) turned up to sail, Stena had decided that the vessel would sail
>back to Holland empty. They had run out of hamburgers amd the crew was tired
>:-(
Fair enough if the crew is tired, but how can you run a passenger
service without the ability to replenish stocks at both ends?
>Of course since the HSS came and the British crews were sacked there is no
>way of supplying the ship from the British end and everything is run from
>Holland, with a consequent lack of communication.
>It's all very frustrating
>and ridiculous that Stena has no contingency plans. After the week out in
>the Spring after the Discovery was put out of action by a wave, and the
>scares on Felixstowe beach (huge waves washing away holidaymakers), one
>wonders whether the HSS was such a wonderful idea.
Not just at Felixstowe, the Belfast to Stranrar HSS has been restricted
for the run through the lochs at both ends as it was causing costal
damage, swamping small boats and knocking bathers over with the tidal
wave that struch as much as 20 mins after the craft had passed.
The HSS is a wonderful idea, it just depends on the crew. The same way
as a car is only as good as the driver.
--
Gordon Brown
gordon@jdc-etype dot demon dot co dot uk
<Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine>