Queen Elizabeth 2, often referred to simply as QE2, is a floating hotel and retired ocean liner built for the Cunard Line which was operated by Cunard as both a transatlantic liner and a cruise ship from 1969 to 2008. Since 18 April 2018, she has been operating as a floating hotel in Dubai.[2]

QE2 was designed for the transatlantic service from her home port of Southampton, UK to New York,[3] and was named after the earlier Cunard liner RMS Queen Elizabeth. She served as the flagship of the line from 1969 until succeeded by RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004. QE2 was designed in Cunard's offices in Liverpool and Southampton and built in Clydebank, Scotland. She was considered the last of the great transatlantic ocean liners until Queen Mary 2 entered service.

QE2 was also the last oil-fired passenger steamship to cross the Atlantic in scheduled liner service until she was refitted with a modern diesel powerplant in 1986–87. She undertook regular world cruises during almost 40 years of service, and later operated predominantly as a cruise ship, sailing out of Southampton, England. QE2 had no running mate and never ran a year-round weekly transatlantic express service to New York. She did, however, continue the Cunard tradition of regular scheduled transatlantic crossings every year of her service life. QE2 was never given a Royal Mail Ship designation, instead carrying the SS and later MV or MS prefixes in official documents.[4]

QE2 was retired from active Cunard service on 27 November 2008. She had been acquired by the private equity arm of Dubai World, which planned to begin conversion of the vessel to a 500-room floating hotel moored at the Palm Jumeirah, Dubai.[5][6] The 2008 financial crisis intervened, however, and the ship was laid up at Dubai Drydocks and later Port Rashid.[7] Subsequent conversion plans were announced by in 2012[8] and by the Oceanic Group in 2013[9] but these both stalled. In November 2015, Cruise Arabia & Africa quoted DP World chairman Ahmed Sultan Bin Sulayem as saying that QE2 would not be scrapped[10] and a Dubai-based construction company announced in March 2017 that it had been contracted to refurbish the ship.[11] The restored QE2 opened to visitors on 18 April 2018,[12] with a soft opening. The grand opening was set for October 2018.[13]

Contents

1 Development

2 Design

2.1 Characteristics

2.2 Hull

2.3 Superstructure

2.4 Interiors

2.5 Artwork and artefacts

2.6 Crew accommodation

2.7 Machinery

3 Construction

4 Service

4.1 Early career

4.2 Falklands War

4.3 Diesel era and Project Lifestyle

4.4 Later years

4.5 Retirement and final Cunard voyage

5 Layup

5.1 Istithmar, Nakheel, QE2 in Dubai and Cape Town hotel proposal

5.2 2010 sale and relocation speculation

5.3 2011 drifting

5.4 Warm layup

5.5 2011 return to Liverpool plan, Port Rashid and QE2 development plans

5.6 2011/2012 New Year's party aboard QE2

5.7 July 2012: Hotel announcement

5.8 Scrapping in China, QE2 London and QE2 Asia

5.9 "Bring QE2 Home" proposals

5.10 Queen Elizabeth 2 movements in 2015

5.11 2016 removal of lifeboats and davits

5.12 50th anniversary celebration

6 Hotel and tourist attraction

7 Name

7.1 Form of name

7.2 Background

7.3 Launch

7.4 1969 authorised history

7.5 Ron Warwick, former captain

7.6 Cunard website

7.7 Other accounts

8 References

8.1 Sources

9 External links

9.1 Queen Elizabeth 2 official websites

9.2 QE2 history websites

9.3 Video of QE2

Development

Number 736 on the slipway, 1967.

By 1957, it was obvious that transatlantic travel was becoming dominated by air travel due to its speed and low cost relative to sea routes, with passenger numbers split 50:50 between sea and air transport.[14] The increase in market share by air showed no signs of slowing down, especially once the Boeing 707 entered service in 1958.[15] Conversely, Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth were becoming increasingly expensive to operate, and both internally and externally were relics of the pre-war years and needed to be retired by the mid-1960s.

Despite falling passenger revenues, Cunard did not want to give up its traditional role as a provider of a North Atlantic passenger service, and so decided to replace the existing ageing Queens with a new ocean liner designated "Q3", as it would be the third Cunard Queen.[16]

The Q3 was projected to measure 75,000 gross register tons, have berths for 2,270 passengers, and cost an estimated ₤30 million.[15][17]

Work had proceeded as far as the preparation of submissions from six shipyards and applying for government financial assistance with the construction when misgivings among some executives and directors, coupled with a shareholder revolt, led to the benefits of the project being reappraised and ultimately cancelled on 19 October 1961.[15][18]

Cunard decided to continue with a replacement "Queen" but with an altered operating regime and more flexible design. Realising the decline of transatlantic trade, it was visualised that she would be a three-class (First, Cabin and Tourist) dual-purpose ship operating for eight months of the year on the transatlantic route, and during the winter months would operate as a cruise ship in warmer climates.[15][19]

Compared with the old "Queen", which had two engine rooms and four propellers, the newly designated Q4 would be smaller with one boiler room, one engine room and two propellers, which combined with automation would allow a smaller engineering complement.[20] Despite producing 110,000 shp, she was to have the same service speed of 28.5 knots (52.8 km/h) as previous Queens which needed 160,000shp, while its fuel consumption would be halved to 520 tons,[21] which was expected to save ₤1 million a year in fuel bills.[20] The Q4 would also be able to transit the Panama Canal and Suez Canal and her draught of 32 feet, which was seven feet less than her predecessors, would allow her to enter ports that the old Queens could not, and so compete with the new generation of cruise ships.[16]

The original construction budget was ₤22 million, but costs soon began to increase, which led to the decision to reduce the number of boilers from four to three.[22]

Design

QE2's long bow was typical of ocean liners.

QE2 back on the River Clyde for her 40th birthday

This section needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.

Find sources: "Queen Elizabeth 2" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (April 2017) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)

The interior and superstructure for the QE2 was designed by James Gardner. His design for the ocean liner was described by The Council of Industrial Design as that of a "very big yacht" and with a "look [that was] sleek, modern and purposeful".[23]

Characteristics

At the time of retirement, the ship had a gross tonnage of 70,327 and was 963 ft (294 m) long. QE2 had a top speed of 32.5 knots (60.2 km/h) with her original steam turbines; this was increased to 34 knots (63 km/h) when the vessel was re-engined with a diesel-electric powerplant.[24][25][26]

Hull

The steel hull had a bulbous bow and was welded which avoided the weight penalty of over ten million rivets and overlapped plates compared with the previous Queens.[20]

Superstructure

Like both Normandie and France, QE2 had a flared stem and clean forecastle.

What was controversial at the time, was that Cunard decided not to paint the funnel with the line's distinctive colour and pattern, something that had been done on all merchant vessels since the first Cunard ship, the RMS Britannia, sailed in 1840. Instead, the funnel was painted white and black, with the Cunard orange-red appearing only on the inside of the wind scoop. This practice ended in 1983 when QE2 returned from service in the Falklands War, and the funnel has been painted in Cunard traditional colours (orange and black), with black horizontal bands (known as "hands") ever since.

The original pencil-like funnel was rebuilt in 1986 as a more robust one, using metal from the original, when the ship was converted from steam to diesel power.

Large quantities of aluminium were used in the framing and cladding of QE2's superstructure. This decision was designed to save weight, reducing the draft of the ship and lowering the fuel consumption, but it also posed the possibility of corrosion problems that can occur with joining the dissimilar metals together, so a jointing compound was coated between the steel and aluminium surfaces to prevent this happening. The low melting point of aluminium caused concern when QE2 was serving as a troop ship during the Falklands War: some feared that if the ship were struck by a missile her upper decks would collapse quickly due to fire, thereby causing greater casualties.

In 1972, the first penthouse suites were added in an aluminium structure on Signal Deck and Sports Deck (now "Sun Deck"), behind the ship's bridge, and in 1977 this structure was expanded to include more suites with balconies, making QE2 one of the first ships to offer private terraces to passengers since Normandie in the 1930s.

QE2's balcony accommodation was expanded for the final time during QE2's 1986/87 refurbishment in Bremerhaven. During this refit the ship was given a new wider funnel built using panels from the original. It retained the traditional Cunard colours. During this refit the original Cunard lettering on the superstructure was removed and replaced with new lettering cut from the steel of the original Queen Elizabeth which was destroyed by fire in Hong Kong as Seawise University.[citation needed]

QE2's final structural changes included the reworking of the aft decks during the 1994 refit (following the removal of the magrodome), and the addition of an undercover area on Sun Deck during her 2005 refit, creating a space known as Funnel Bar.

Interiors

Queen Elizabeth 2's interior configuration was laid out in a horizontal fashion, similar to France, where the spaces dedicated to the two classes were spread horizontally on specific decks, in contrast to the vertical class divisions of older liners. Where QE2 differed from France was that the first class deck (Quarter Deck) was below the deck dedicated to tourist class (Upper Deck). Originally there were to be main lounges serving three classes, layered one atop the other, but when Cunard decided to make the ship a two class vessel, only two main lounges were needed.

Instead of completely reconfiguring the Boat Deck, the ship's architects simply opened a well in the deck between what were to have been the second and third class lounges, creating a double height space known as the Double Room (now the Grand Lounge). This too was unconventional in that it designated a grander two-storey space for tourist class passengers, while first class passengers gathered in the standard height Queen's Room. The configuration for segregated Atlantic crossings gave first class passengers the theatre balcony on Boat Deck, while tourist class used the orchestra level on Upper Deck.

Over the span of her thirty-nine-year seagoing career, QE2 has had a number of interior refits and alterations.

The year she came into service, 1969, was also the year of the Apollo 11 mission, when the Concorde's prototype was unveiled, and the previous year Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered. In keeping with those times, originally Cunard broke from the traditional interiors of their previous liners for QE2, especially the Art Deco style of the previous Queens. Instead modern materials like plastic laminates, aluminium and Perspex were used. The public rooms featured glass, stainless steel, dark carpeting and sea green leather.[27] Furniture was modular and abstract art was used throughout public rooms and cabins.

Dennis Lennon was responsible for co-ordinating the interior design, and his team included Jon Bannenberg and Gaby Schreiber, although Lennon's original designs only remained intact for three years.[28]

The Midships Lobby on Two Deck, where first class passengers boarded for transatlantic journeys and all passengers boarded for cruises, was a circular room with a sunken seating area in the centre with green leather clad banquettes, and surrounded by a chrome railing. As a kingpin to this was a flared, white, trumpet shaped, up lit column.

Another room, designed by Michael Inchbald, where QE2's advanced interior design was demonstrated was the first class lounge, the Queen's Room on Quarter Deck. This space, in colours of white and tan, featured a lowered ceiling with large indirectly lit slots, which, despite reducing the ceiling height, created an impression of airy openness above to deal with the otherwise oppressive dimensions of the single storey room (c. 30m x 30m x 2.4m). In addition the structural columns were flared at the top to blend into the ceiling and to lose the visual indication of low ceiling height that straight columns would have given. (The Midships Lobby copied these features but without achieving the airiness.) Inchbald repeated the flaring of the columns in the bases of his tables and leather shell chairs. The indirect lighting from above could be switched from a cool hue for summer to a warm hue for winter.[29]

The Theatre Bar on Upper Deck featured red chairs, red drapes, a red egg crate fibreglass screen, and even a red baby grand piano. Some more traditional materials like wood veneer were used as highlights throughout the ship, especially in passenger corridors and staterooms. There was also an Observation Bar on Quarter Deck, a successor to its namesake, located in a similar location, on both previous Queens, which offered views through large windows over the ship's bow. This room was lost in QE2's 1972 refit, becoming galley space with the forward-facing windows plated over.

In the 1994 refit, almost all of the remaining original decor was replaced, with Cunard opting to reverse the original design direction of QE2's designers and use the line's traditional ocean liners as inspiration. The green velvet and leather Midships Bar became the Art Deco inspired Chart Room, receiving an original, custom designed piano from Queen Mary. The (by now) blue dominated Theatre Bar was transformed into the Golden Lion Pub, which mimics a traditional Edwardian pub.

Some original elements were retained including the flared columns in the Queens Room and Mid-Ships Lobby which were incorporated into the reworked designs. The Queen's Room's indirect lighting from above was replaced with uplighters which reversed the original light airy effect by illuminating the lowered ceiling and leaving shadows in the ceiling's slot. The furniture and carpet which replaced Michael Inchbald's designs were incongruous next to the flared columns and slotted ceiling.

By the time of her retirement, the Synagogue was the only room that had remained unaltered since 1969.[30] However it was reported that during QE2's 22 October five night voyage, the Synagogue was carefully dismantled before being removed from the ship prior to her final sailing to Dubai.[31]

Artwork and artefacts

QE2 bell on display on the MS Queen Elizabeth

The designers included numerous pieces of artwork within the public rooms of the ship, as well as maritime artefacts drawn from Cunard's long history of operating merchant vessels.

Althea Wynne’s sculpture of the White Horses of the Atlantic Ocean was installed in the Mauretania Restaurant.[32] Two bronze busts were installed—one of Sir Samuel Cunard outside the Yacht Club, and one of Queen Elizabeth II in the Queen’s Room. Four life-size statues of human forms—created by sculptor Janine Janet in marine materials like shell and coral, representing the four elements—were installed in the Princess Grill. A frieze designed by Brody Nevenshwander, depicting the words of T. S. Eliot, Sir Francis Drake, and John Masefield, was in the Chart Room. The Midships Lobby housed a solid silver model of Queen Elizabeth 2 made by Asprey of Bond Street in 1975, which was lost until a photograph found in 1997 led to the discovery of the model itself. It was placed on Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1999.

Three custom-designed tapestries were commissioned from Helena Hernmarck for the ship’s launch, depicting the Queen as well as the launch of the ship. These tapestries were originally hung in the Quarter Deck “D” Stairway, outside the Columbia Restaurant. They were originally made with golden threads, but much of this was lost when they were incorrectly cleaned during the 1987 refit. They were subsequently hung in the “E” stairway, and later damaged in 2005.

There are numerous photographs, oils, and pastels of members of the Royal Family throughout the vessel.

The ship also housed items from previous Cunard ships, including both a brass relief plaque with a fish motif from the first RMS Mauretania (1906) and an Art-Deco bas-relief titled Winged Horse and Clouds by Norman Foster from RMS Queen Elizabeth. There were also a vast array of Cunard postcards, porcelain, flatware, boxes, linen, and Lines Bros Tri-ang Minic model ships. One of the key pieces was a replica of the figurehead from Cunard's first ship RMS Britannia, carved from Quebec yellow pine by Cornish sculptor Charles Moore and presented to the ship by Lloyd's of London.

On the Upper Deck sits the silver Boston Commemorative Cup, presented to Britannia by the City of Boston in 1840. This cup was lost for decades until it was found in a pawn shop in Halifax, Nova Scotia. On “2” Deck was a bronze entitled Spirit of the Atlantic that was designed by Barney Seale for the second RMS Mauretania (1938). A large wooden plaque was presented to Queen Elizabeth 2 by First Sea Lord Sir John Fieldhouse to commemorate the ship's service as a Hired Military Transport (HMT) in the Falklands War.

There was also an extensive collection of large-scale models of Cunard ships located throughout Queen Elizabeth 2.[33]

Over the years the ship's collection was added to. Among those items was a set of antique Japanese armour presented to Queen Elizabeth 2 by the Governor of Kagoshima, Japan, during her 1979 world cruise, as was a Wedgwood vase presented to the ship by Lord Wedgwood.

Throughout the public areas were also silver plaques commemorating the visits of every member of the Royal Family, as well as other dignitaries like South African president Nelson Mandela.

Istithmar bought most of these items from Cunard when it purchased QE2.[34]

Crew accommodation

The majority of crew were accommodated in two- or four-berth cabins, with showers and toilets at the end of each alleyway.[citation needed] These were located forward and aft on decks three to six.[citation needed] At the time she entered service, the crew areas were a significant improvement over those aboard RMS Queen Mary and RMS Queen Elizabeth; however the ship's age and the lack of renovation of the crew area during her 40 years of service, in contrast to passenger areas, which were updated periodically, meant that this accommodation was considered basic by the end of her career. Officers were accommodated in single cabins with private en-suite bathrooms located on Sun Deck.[18]

There were three crew bars, one named The Pig & Whistle.[35] ("The Pig" for short and a tradition aboard Cunard ships), Castaways and the Fo'c's'le Club. A fourth bar, dedicated for the officers, is located at the forward end of Boat Deck. Named The Officers Wardroom, this area enjoyed forward facing views and was often opened to passengers for cocktail parties hosted by the senior officers.[36] The crew mess was situated at the forward end of One Deck,[35] adjacent to the crew services office.

Machinery

Queen Elizabeth 2 being re-engined at Bremerhaven, November 1986

Queen Elizabeth 2's original funnel, removed while being re-engined; her old fixed-pitch propellers are lying to the bottom left hand side on the photo

Queen Elizabeth 2 was fitted out with a steam turbine propulsion system utilising three Foster Wheeler E.S.D II boilers, which provided steam for the two Brown-Pametrada turbines. The turbines were rated with a maximum power output figure of 110,000 shaft horsepower (normally operating at 94,000 hp) and coupled via double-reduction gearing to two six-bladed fixed-pitch propellers.

The steam turbines were plagued with problems[citation needed] from the time the ship first entered service and, despite being technically advanced and fuel-efficient in 1968, her consumption of 600 tons of fuel oil every twenty four hours was more than expected for such a ship by the 1980s. After seventeen years of service the availability of spare parts was becoming difficult[citation needed] due to the outdated design of the boilers and turbines, and Cunard decided that the options were to either do nothing for the remainder of the ship's life, re-configure the existing engines, or re-engine the vessel with a more efficient diesel-electric powerplant. Ultimately it was decided to replace the engines, as it was calculated that the savings in fuel costs and maintenance would pay for themselves over four years, and give the vessel a minimum of another twenty years of service, whereas the other options would only provide short-term relief.[37] Her steam turbines had taken her to a record breaking total of 2,622,858 miles in 18 years.[38]

During the ship's 1986 to 1987 refit, the steam turbines were removed and replaced with nine German MAN L58/64 nine-cylinder, medium-speed diesel engines, each weighing approximately 120 tons. Using a diesel-electric configuration, each engine drives a generator, each developing 10.5 MW of electrical power at 10,000 volts. This electrical plant, in addition to powering the ship's auxiliary and hotel services through transformers, drives the two main propulsion motors, one on each propeller shaft. These motors produce 44 MW each and are of synchronised salient-pole construction, nine metres in diameter and weighing more than 400 tons each.

The ship's service speed of 28.5 knots (52.8 km/h) can be maintained using only seven of the diesel-electric sets. Her maximum power output with the new engine configuration running was now 130,000 hp, which is greater than the previous system's 110,000 hp. Using the same IBF-380 (Bunker C) fuel, the new configuration yielded a 35% fuel saving over the previous system. During the re-engining process, her funnel was replaced by a wider one to accommodate the exhaust pipes for the nine MAN diesel engines.

During the refit, the original fixed-pitch propellers were replaced with variable-pitch propellers. The old steam propulsion system required astern turbines to move the ship backwards or stop her moving forward. The pitch of the new variable pitch blades could simply be reversed, causing a reversal of propeller thrust while maintaining the same direction of propeller rotation, allowing the ship shorter stopping times and improved handling characteristics. The new propellers were originally fitted with "Grim Wheels", named after their inventor, Dr. Ing Otto Grim.[37]

These were free-spinning propeller blades fitted behind the main propellers, with long vanes protruding from the centre hub. These were designed to recover lost propeller thrust and reduce fuel consumption by 2.5 to 3%. After the trial of these wheels, when the ship was drydocked, the majority of the vanes on each wheel were discovered to have broken off. The wheels were removed and the project abandoned.

Other machinery includes nine heat recovery boilers, coupled with two oil-fired boilers to produce steam for heating fuel, domestic water, swimming pools, laundry equipment, and galleys. Four flash evaporators and a reverse-osmosis unit desalinate sea water to produce 1000 tons of fresh water daily. There is also a sanitation system and sewage disposal plant, air conditioning plant, and an electro-hydraulic steering system.[39]