SO LONG OLD GAL. QE2 arrives in Dubai.

QE2 approaches her final home.

LISTEN.....




LOOK.

My personal pictures of the Grand Old Queen in June of this year.

Click HERE to see the bridgecam of her final voyage from Southampton to Dubai.

All but the last of these were taken from the 11 deck Observation area in Queen Mary 2 as she left Southampton for New York, the day of the Queen's final visit to the ship she named forty years earlier. Isn't she lovely?

QE 2 Runs Aground on her final day.

Two and a half million passengers, 800 Atlantic crossings, five and a half million miles and this beloved old girl of the sea reminded us she's not going easily.
Queen Elizabeth 2 ran aground this morning as she was coming into Southampton Water. She has departed for Dubai to a tumultuous farewell from her home port of forty years.

So long, old gal.

HEARTBREAK of the last Scottish Ship. The retirement of the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth 2.

Where do I begin with such a glorious Ocean Liner?

Perhaps here, with her whistle, one of the most sonorous in the history of maritime navigation.





Ladies and Gentlemen of the Oceans, a ROYAL QUEEN is about to retire.

Look at her bows; look at her pennant; look at her!!!


And a fitting farewell from the NEW Cunard Flagship.


There are few ocean liners left in the world, and fewer still with the reputation and sheer glory of the Queen Elizabeth 2. For those not in the know of such things, including (perhaps ?) the Sovereign who named her, the QE2 was intended to be named after the Cunard Liner Queen Elizabeth, and not after the present QUEEN of England. In her naming of the ship on the Clyde in 1968, Her Majesty named the ship "Queen Elizabeth the second", and so she is. It was the purpose of Cunard that she be named as the second of the stable in the name Queen Elizabeth, an ocean liner named after Lady Elizabeth Bowes Lyon; later to become Queen Elizabeth, the mother of the present Queen. If you pay attention to sailors, though, her REAL name is the name she was given by the Sovereign at her christening, regardless of what Cunard, or anyone else for that matter, would have you believe.

No matter, either of Queen Elizabeth 2, or Queen Elizabeth the second; whether she be named after a ship, a Monarch, a Monarch's mother or all three, one thing is for certain. QE2, built of Scottish sweat, tears and blood at the John Brown Shipyard on Clydeside, is a glorious Ocean Liner not likely to be seen again in a very long time.





RMS Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) is a Cunard Line ocean liner named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, which in turn was named after Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen consort of George VI; the Queen Mother . She was the flagship of the Cunard line from 1969 until succeeded by RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004. Built in Clydebank, Scotland, she was considered the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners prior to the construction of the QM2. Before she was refitted with a diesel power plant in 1986, she was also the last oil-fired passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic in scheduled liner service. During almost 40 years of service, the QE2 has travelled the world and now operates predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England.

She will be retired from active service in late 2008, to become a floating hotel at Palm Jumeirah, Dubai.


Retirement

As Queen Elizabeth 2 approached her 40th anniversary with Cunard, questions begun to circulate as to how much longer the ship could stay in service. Cunard had to consider the economics of maintaining a 40-year-old liner in operation, particularly with regard to new SOLAS safety regulations that would apply from 2010 onward.

Both Southampton and Clydebank had offered to take over QE2 after her retirement, but on 18 June 2007 it was announced that the ship has been purchased by the Dubai investment company Istithmar for $100 million. Her final voyage will be from Southampton to Dubai, leaving on 11 November 2008.

After arrival, she will be refurbished and berthed permanently at the Palm Jumeirah from 2009 as a "a luxury floating hotel, retail, museum and entertainment destination", or in other words, a painted harlot. What an ignominious end for so glorious a ship. I'd sooner see her sunk.

Farewell, QE2. Your forty years upon the oceans of the world will not soon be forgotten.

Queen Mary 2, too big for Panama.

Conventional wisdom has it that any ocean liner's design must be constrained by limiting dimensions. The turning basin at Southampton, the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in New York, and the Panama Canal. The Queen Mary 2 re-wrote the design rule book and is too large for Panama, forcing her to round Cape Horn at the southernmost tip of Chile. Fabulous!

Glory, Glory, Glory.

Cunard line was taken over by Carnival Corporation in 1998 who recognised the value of the brand and appreciated such a glorious nautical heritage. Immediately, plans were made for 'Project Queen Mary', a ship to harken back to the glory days of the great Ocean Liners, but what to name such a vessel? There was no equivocation. She was to be named after that great Royal lady of the seas, the Queen Mary.

Queen Mary 2 was to be stupendous. Carnival opened their vaults and a previously unheard of eight hundred million dollars was spent on her construction. This magnificent liner was built at St. Nazarre, in the same shipyards that build the might SS Normandy. This is a wonderful example of 'keeping it in the family', but necessary since, to all intents and purposes, British shipbuilding, once the first word throughout the world, had virtually vanished due to union fecklessness. Nevetheless, St. Nazarre it was and they did a magnificent job.

She was named by the Queen on January 8th, 2004 and it was during her maiden world cruise when QUEEN MARY 2 sailed as close as she dared to the original Queen Mary in Longbeach and gave her a 3 blast salute. Each ocean liner's horn, or whistle as they are more correctly called, is individually hand-built by expert craftsmen, and are as unique as fingerprints. Here is a wonderful video of the occasion when the two Queens Mary met for the first time. Listen carefully for the return salute by the Queen Mary from her permanent mooring at Longbeach. She sounds as glorious as ever here, as history is being made.


In keeping with Cunard tradition, the whistle currently mounted on the starboard funnel of Queen Mary 2, used to belong to the original. It was specially renewed by the original manufacturer, Kockums of Sweden. She can be heard from over ten miles away when at sea and sounds like Poseidon himself gargling lava. Glorious.

Farewell to a Cunard Queen.

The advent of the jet aircraft was the death knell of the great liners and Cunard, committed to the construction of Queen Mary's replacement, the QE2, needed to sell the old Queen to pay the bills. Very narrowly, Queen Mary 2 was sold to Longbeach California where she lies in state to this day as an hotel and tourist attraction, having very nearly been sold to Japanese scrap merchants.


Ship have a strange effect of those of us who love them. I'm sure that I'm not alone in being moved by a long blast from a ship's whistle. The only time our present Monarch, Queen Elizabeth 2nd has cried in public, was at the farewell of her beloved yacht Britannia. Ships are far, far more than the sum of their parts, they carry with them the spirits of all those who travelled in them and few ships have the service record of the mighty Queen Mary.

After 1001 crossings of the Atlantic, she sailed on her final journey, from Southampton to Longbeach. So much history, so much tradition, it is hard to imagine a ship more reflective of the true magnificence of the great ocean liners than is Queen Mary. The ocean she spanned with safety and distinction for so many years is still the most important bridge in humanity, that between the United States and Europe, connecting the new world with the old, and although the bulk of traffic these days flies over the ocean rather than upon it, an important, industry changing decision was made by Cunard on June 7th, 1998, which not only refreshed the memory of this mighty Cunard Queen, but announced the birth of a new and exciting Cunader bearing her famous Royal name, opening the seas to a new generation and enabling thousands, once more, to cross the Atlantic in comfort, in safety and in style.

Farewell to the Royal Mail Steamer, QUEEN MARY. Long upon the sea, longer upon the memory. Longest in the heart.

The birth of a Cunard Queen.

In the 1930's, the race was on. The greatest transportation route on earth was between the United States and Europe, as indeed it is today. There was great competition between Germany and especially between France and Britain. The British entry into to fray was the magnificent Cunard-White Star liner, Queen Mary, although she was very nearly named Victoria.

Until her launch she was known simply as Cunard hull No. 534, since the name she was to be given was kept a closely guarded secret. Legend has it that Cunard intended to name the ship "Victoria", in keeping with company tradition of giving its ships names ending in "ia". However, when company representatives asked the King's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest queen", he said his wife, Queen Mary, would be delighted. And so, the legend goes, the delegation had of course no other choice but to report that No. 534 would be called RMS Queen Mary. However, this story was denied by company officials, and is probably apocryphal, since traditionally the names of sovereigns have only been used for capital ships of the Royal Navy. It is more likely that the name Queen Mary was decided on as a compromise between Cunard and the White Star Line, with which Cunard had recently merged, who had a tradition of using names ending in "ic".

Construction began in December 1930 on the River Clyde by the John Brown & Company Shipbuilding and Engineering shipyard at Clydebank Scotland but was halted in December 1931 due to the Great Depression. Cunard applied to the British Government for a loan to complete 534. The loan was granted, with enough money to complete the Queen Mary as well as enough to build a running mate, hull No. 552 which became Queen Elizabeth. One condition of the loan was that Cunard merge with the financially ailing White Star Line, which was Cunard's chief British rival at the time. Both lines agreed and the merger was completed in April 1934. Work on the Queen Mary resumed immediately and she was launched on 26 September 1934. It had taken 3½ years and cost 3½ million British Pounds to complete her.