Sir Francis would have been very proud indeed!

Maritime Book Blog

God bless her and all who ever sailed in her! November 2008 - and forty-one years after being launched into the River Clyde by Queen Elizabeth II, the QE2 sails for Dubai and a garish afterlife as a static tourist attraction!

At http://www.ssmaritime.com , a website devoted to maritime nostalga and passenger liner preservation, Reuben Goossens, Maritime Historian, Author & Lecturer / Cruise Reviewer & Journalist, warns us that the QE2 is due for a massive revamp prior to commencing a garish afterlife as a static tourist attraction at Dubai's Palm Jumeirah complex. He quotes a report from Mersey based Alex Naughton - another stalwart of maritime nostalga and ship preservation with a website-worth-a-visit at www.oceanlinermuseum.co.uk - about the intentions of her new owners - saying that 'there is even talk that her iconic red and black funnel will be placed on the quayside where it will become a visitor centre. Apparantly the funnel will be replaced by a similar, but modernised looking glass structure housing a 4-deck smoked glass penthouse including a swimming pool.'

It is also rumoured that lifeboats will disappear and extra rooms will be built into the deck at the stern. Internally her decks containing cabins will be completely stripped and spacious hotel rooms that meet today's contemporary requirements will be built.'

'However, most tragically, QE2's engines and machinery spaces will be removed to make space for new entertainment facilities.'

It appears that the 'lady' herself was none too chuffed about all this and managed to run herself aground on a sandbank just outside Southhampton when returning to the port for her final sendoff voyage to Dubai - causing the Independent to run the headline 'QE2: Shipwrecked in the sand' ! True - in more ways than one - by the looks of things!

So there you have its folks! Not exactly the great ship as you would all like to remember her! Thankfully though, some of those who knew and loved her, including former master Captain R W Warwick, who has penned for us QE2 - The Cunard Line Flagship, Queen Elizabeth 2 , a tome that has run to several editions - noted maritime historan William Miller, with The QE2: A Picture History and even, bless her, Carol Thatcher , who has racked up nostalga levels with "QE2": Forty Years Famous - have left us a legecy of prose and pictures to commemorate this once great icon of traditional passenger voyaging and cruising!

And if you crave memories of onboard culinary delights, there are even a few copies of Gretel Beer's The QE2 Cook Book still floating around.!

You can find links to a selection of QE2 books below:

Maritime Scribe: William H Miller !

Miller's latest! Under the Red Ensign: British Passenger Ships of the 1950s-1960s

Bill Miller is without doubt today's leading authority on passenger vessels and cruise liners - famous among shipping buffs for the 70-plus books he has written - or co-authored - on the history of various liner routes - particularly during the Golden Age of Sea Travel from the 1920s through to the 1960s - as well as the lines that served such routes (Going Dutch: The Holland America line Story and The Picture History of the Italian Line, 1932-1977), the more outstanding individual vessels (Picture History of the SS United States), and the passing of such eras as that of long-distance passenger travel by sea - as he has done so admirably in The Last Blue Water Liners, a copy of which sits close to hand as we type these very words! 

Sea travel as a way of getting from continent to continent died with the advent of long-haul aviation and was a gonner by the mid-70s - by which time those shipping lines that were adaptable, along with a few newcomers (such as Carnival, now the biggest daddy of them all, and Royal Caribbean the second biggest), developed into the cruise lines we know today - an era that is the subject of several more of Miller's tomes such as Great Cruise Ships and Ocean Liners from 1954-86 which covers the transition period - and Modern Cruise Ships, 1965-90.

Miller was, - as Wikipedia reminds us - born in Hoboken, New Jersey, on May 3, 1948 and has been an ocean liner enthusiast since childhood. He is a past chaiman of the World Ship Society's Port of New York Branch and has held various other maritime-related posts including that of Historian at the Museum of the American Merchant Marine. He is also well known as a lecturer aboard passenger liners and cruise vessels, as well as for his appearance as host on television programmes featured on the National Geographic and Discovery Channels, such as The Liners.

A taste of Miller's work can be found at http://www.oceancruisenews.com/bmiller.htm in the form of several snappy contributions to the World Ocean and Cruise Liner Society.

We leave you below, with links to a selection of a number of his other titles. Most - whether still in print or not - can be found by searching Amazon, Abebooks or Alibris and simply typing in the author's name. And (if you don't mind the hopefully unobtrusive 'plug', anything we make - from such affiliate sales - above the cost of running this website goes to fund various literacy programmes we support)!