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?

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.