Search the Community

It's nearly five years since QE2's last voyage and the ship was sold. It was intended to sell her for scrap, but she was bought by a real estate developer in Dubai that planned to convert her into a floating hotel, like the Queen Mary at Long Beach. But after the ship sailed to Dubai on her final voyage nothing seems to have happened, although her internal systems have been kept running. Last December it was rumoured the ship had been sold for scrap, then in January it was announced a consortium known as QE2 Dubai had been formed to own and operate the ship as a five star 500-room hotel at an unknown location in Asia, but her future is still uncertain. QE2 was built as a steam ship, powered by steam turbines, and during her life rescued passengers from a doomed French ship that later sank, was held to ransom, ran aground on rocks and was seriously damaged, and was requisitioned by the UK government as a troop ship during the Falklands War. She was the most famous ship in the world and was a true ocean liner. Unlike "cruise ships" or "cruise liners" an ocean liner is designed to cope with heavy seas and storms like those on the transatlantic crossing. These are the only ships that could offer a regular scheduled service between Europe and the US. To be able to do this they need to slice through the waves efficiently and cope with stormy seas and weather, so they're designed differently and built to be stronger, using significantly more steel, which makes them much more expensive to build per passenger. Strong seas and storms would probably sink a modern "high-rise" cruise ship, like the sort of weather QE2 came up against in September 1995 when, in the middle of the Atlantic on a regular transatlantic service from Southampton to New York, she was caught up in Hurricane Luis. The Ship's Log records that she encountered winds up to 130 mph, average wave heights of 40 feet, and was hit by a monster wave of over 90 feet. That's pretty impressive. The only remaining ocean liner is the Queen Mary II which is still able to run a scheduled trans-Atlantic service.