Queen Mary 2 celebrates in style.........

This morning Cunard's flagship, Queen Mary 2, arrived at the Ocean Terminal in Greenock to mark the long and historic link between Cunard and the Clyde as part of the company's 175th anniversary celebrations.

Cunard's first ship Britannia was built at Robert Duncan & Co. Shipyard at Greenock and launched into the Clyde on 5 February in 1840. Her maiden voyage from Liverpool to Halifax and Boston inaugurated the first scheduled steamship service across the Atlantic and changed the face of ocean travel forever. 

In 1842 Charles Dickens, accompanied by his wife, boards Britannia in Liverpool and sails for America. Despite calling his cabin a ‘profoundly preposterous box’ they sail with Cunard again in 1844.

Britannia and her Greenock-built sisters, Acadia, Caledonia and Columbia, laid the foundations for a service which has continued without fail, in peace and war, every year since 1840.

Over 175 years, 248 ships have flown the Cunard flag and of those 125 were built in Scotland with 120 of those being built on the Clyde.

The Clyde has produced some of the most famous ships ever to go to sea and many of those have sailed for the Cunard Line; Britannia, Hibernia, Russia, Servia, Lucania, Campania, Lusitania, Aquitania, Queen Mary, Queen Elizabeth, Caronia and Queen Elizabeth 2.

Tonight just after 10pm the Queen Mary 2 departed Ocean Terminal with a fabulous fireworks display to celebrate and pay tribute to the people and workers on the Clyde that have given so much for Cunard.