QE2

RMS Queen Elizabeth 2, simply called the 'QE2', is a retired Cunard ocean cruise liner, owned by Nakheel, a sub-company of Dubai World. The ship was named after the earlier Cunard cruise ship RMS Queen Elizabeth, and served as the top ship in the Cunard fleet from 1969 until it was succeeded by RMS Queen Mary 2 in 2004.

Built in Clydebank, Scotland, by John Brown & Company at £29,091,000, she was the last great transatlantic ocean liner prior to the construction of the QM2 in 2003. 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 ocean liner service. For 39 years the QE2 traveled the world as a cruise ship, with Southampton, England as home port.

The ship has a gross tonnage (GT) of 70,327 tons and is 963 ft (294 m) long. Her top speed was 32.5 knots (60.2 km/h) using her original steam turbine powerplant, increased to 34 knots (63 km/h) when she was re-engined with a diesel electric power plant in 1986-87. She was launched on Sept. 20, 1967 by Queen Elizabeth, using the same pair of gold scissors her mother and grandmother used to launch the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary, two other famous Cunard ocean liners. The ship left on its maiden voyage on May 2, 1969 from Southampton to New York City. In 1982, it was used as a troop carrier for the Falklands War that Britain fought against Argentina. On Nov. 5, 2004 the QE2 became Cunard's longest serving ship, surpassing the RMS Aquitania’s which had been in service for 35 years.

One innovation that made her distinct from all other ships is her funnel, which has an upward turned wind scoop that uses the forward motion of the ship to push air directly up the flanks of the funnel to catch the exhaust and disperse it far above the passenger decks. The QE2 has had a number of interior refits and alterations. By the time of her retirement, the Synagogue was the only room that had remained unchanged since 1969, but even it was removed from the ship prior to her final sailing to Dubai.

Cunard sold the QE2 to the Dubai World Company for 50 million pounds (then $100 million). The company plans to anchor the ship off Palm Jumeirah, an artificial island off the Mideast emirate, and open it as a tourist attraction and luxury hotel, which will take about two years to complete. At the time of her official retirement on Nov. 27, 2008, QE2 had sailed over six million miles, carried 2.5 million passengers and completed 806 trans-Atlantic crossings. Find out more at: http://www.qe2.org.uk/

Research info gathered at: http://www.wikipedia.org/

Now, here's one of my poems that knows how to cruise:

Eye, Hoping To Be An Ear

or real thirsty

on a beach in summer

your mouth parts & my name

scatters the birds

until I want to run

like warm water

or my honeybee be

with butter on both

sides of the bread

& that carrot

you picnic from a basket

with our propellers on

or your dress uncorked

& unmake

up a map

to love is my limb

I can crawl out on

or rise up like the sun

to make us a day or

maybe a dog all-night

listless lays down

in one big thud

Poem first published at: http://www.zafusy.org/

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