Queen Elizabeth 2

On 4 September 2005, Queen Elizabeth 2 became the longest serving Cunarder, passing the 36 years 4 months and 2 days record of service of Scythia, who sailed from 1921 to 1957. Launched in 1967 (see this BBC article/video) at John Brown & Company (Wikipedia) she sailed for Cunard from 1969 until 2008 - only interrupted by her service as a troopship during the Falkland Island war in 1982. In 2008 QE2 left the Cunard fleet to become a floating hotel and 'retail and entertainment destination' in Dubai.

Originally designed by James Gardner and Dennis Lennon, QE2 was meant to break with the tradition of Cunard's conservative ship design and introduce the transition from solely serving on the transatlantic service to worldwide cruising; see also: QE2 space age ocean liner - Sailing with sixties chic' at ribaj.com

However, her original interiors were only recently appreciated by a broader audience. Following criticism, QE2 tumbled into a seemingly endless chain of refits drifting from the striking modernity of her 1969 debut toward a decor more in line with the cliché many passengers expected of her. The resulting interiors were less original and far less coherent than the original design. A prominent depreciation was the loss of the only forward facing public room which was converted into a galley. Finally, it was mostly her crew and passengers, her transatlantic service and, for quite some time, her size that made her stand out and created the myth surrounding her: It's worth remembering that QE2 was substantially larger than most other passenger ships in service during the 1970s and 1980s.

Amongst all of QE2's refits the most extensive one was carried in 1987 at Lloyd Werft when her steam power plant was replaced with a diesel electric setup. This extended her lifetime quite a bit and was to some extent also owed to the fact that her refit was the cheaper option compared to building a new ship. This new powerplant pioneered the grid architecture that pools diesel generators to run both propulsion and hotel operations found on most large passenger ships built since then; amongst the first newly built ships with this architecture were Carnival's Fantasy class and HAL's Statendam class. For more information on this refit visit the webpage of Rob Lightbody.

A plethora of information is available on the pages of Samuel Warwick, Chris' Cunard Page on QE2. Postcards and photos of QE2 are found at www.simplonpc.co.uk or on the webpage of Pam Massey. For a review of QE2 go to www.cruisepage.com. An excellent documentary about the building of QE2 is found at www.stv.tv - click on 'Contract 736 - documentary about the launch of the QE2'. There is also a nice video of QE2's crew available at YouTube. If you read German, the book 'Der Luxusliner' by Lothar-Günther Buchheim is highly recommended.

The material used for the here presented clips was recorded during an Atlantic crossing aboard QE2 in the 1990ies (hence the low quality) and a visit to Istanbul in 1997. For various reasons only a limited number of rather short clips can be presented.