31Aug2010
During a recent stop over in Los Angeles I had the opportunity to go and visit Cunard White Star Line’s RMS Queen Mary ocean liner. The Queen Mary is a remarkable piece of engineering, technology and trans-atlantic shipping history. She is safely moored in Long Beach, California. The City of Long Beach purchased the Queen Mary in 1971 for 1 million pounds and saved her from the scrap yard. She is now a floating attraction, hotel and living museum.
For 30 years, the Queen Mary provided weekly service from Southampton, England to New York, USA. She connected Great Britain and Europe with the new world both physically and politically until the jet age ended her trans atlantic service in 1968. The Queen Mary is still one of the fastest ocean liners ever built. She sails under steam at an impressive 53 km/h (29 knots) and can carry 3,240 passengers and crew.
During World War 2, the Queen Mary was requisitioned by Great Britain to carry Australian and New Zealand troops to the northern hemisphere conflicts. She is such a vast ship that she carried more than 15,000 troops at a time. Winston Churchill is reported to have said her service in World War 2 cut the conflict’s duration by a year.
Next year it will be the Queen Mary’s 75th anniversary. She has been replaced by Cunard’s handsome Queen Mary 2. The Queen Mary 2 still provides trans-atlantic passenger service and is the only ocean liner in service today. In 2006 the two name sakes famously met each other at the Port of Long Beach (see photo above). Although the QM2 is almost twice the size of the QM1, in my mind she is not twice the boat! I bet they both do a great cup of tea though!!!
Nigel on the lido deck.
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