On 20 September 1967, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II christened and launched a new ocean liner, the Queen Elizabeth II. The ship which, until her christening, had been known only as the Q4 or Yard Number 736, is being built for the Cunard Line of Great Britain in John Brown’s shipyard on the east bank of the Clyde near Glasgow, Scotland.
Awaiting launching, she was a stirring sight, rising more than 100 feet above her keel blocks, sloping aft down the building Ways from clipper stem and flaring bows for nearly 1,000 feet to her fantail. The lines of her immense charcoal hull, dotted with row Upon row of portholes, were reminiscent of Cunard’s most famous liners, the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth, constructed and launched from the same building ways before World War II. Indeed, the new liner called to mind lines written by the late John Masefield in honor of the Queen Mary’s launching in 1934:
“ . . . a rampart of a ship;
Long as a street and lofty as a tower,
Ready to glide in thunder from the slip
And shear the sea with majesty of power”
Like the preceding Queens, the Queen Elizabeth II is a splendid ship, but the realist may well ask why on earth is anyone launching a passenger liner in this day and age? Why in the name of financial reason would anyone risk the more-than-80-million-dollars Cunard is investing when jet aircraft reign supreme over the Atlantic?
Cunard has lost considerable money, more than 40 million dollars, from its passenger ship operations during the past six years. In fact, its liners have not turned a worthwhile profit in more than a decade. In 1957, the ascending air-passenger curve crossed the descending sea-passenger curve on the trans-Atlantic travel graphs, and the curves have continued their separate ways until, today, 86 out of every 100 passengers cross the Atlantic by air. Cunard executives are aware of these statistics, but they are pushing ahead with the Queen Elizabeth II for three reasons. First, the line must have the new ship if it is to offer scheduled biweekly Atlantic crossings (to be coordinated with the French Line’s France so that between them a weekly service will be provided) during the profitable summer tourist months. Second, Cunard insists that the Queen Elizabeth //will be a moneymaker. And third, the line, now in its 128th year, has decided that it is no longer strictly in the transportation business but in the leisure business, and this being the case, it is no longer in direct competition with the jets.
That the line realized the futility of such competition was demonstrated as early as 1961 when it decided against building the Q3, a liner planned since the early 1950s as the Queen Mary's replacement. If built, Q3 would have been another giant of over 80,000 tons designed expressly for year-around North Atlantic service. It was then evident that the line’s future could not be safeguarded by “steaming as before,” and there appeared to be little future in attempting to stay in transport competition by introducing such shipboard economies as smaller staffing and cafeteria-style dining service.
In the new view of Cunard as a leisure business, its Chairman, Sir Basil Smallpeice, sees each of his passenger ships as “a floating resort in which people take a holiday and enjoy themselves, and incidentally get transportation thrown in.” (Bea Lillie anticipated this concept several years ago when she is reported to have asked a member of the Queen Elizabeth's crew, “What time does this place get to England?”)
In the early 1960s, the Queens entered the winter cruise business. In 1966, Cunard sold its 30 per cent holdings in BOAC-Cunard Limited in order to obtain the $32,200,000 which was needed in part to pay for passenger ship modernization (including cruising conversions for the liners Carmania and Franconia). While the Mary was too old to be worth much modernizing for her additional role, the Elizabeth had a multimillion-dollar conversion for cruising during 1965-1966; an outdoor swimming pool/lido deck was added; air conditioning installed; private showers and toilets added to numerous cabins; and a shipboard distillation plant added to permit the liner to produce her own fresh water during extended cruises. Even with the surgery, however, the Queen Elizabeth has shortcomings as a cruise ship. The most significant of these is that she is too big—too big to cruise profitably, too big to pass through either the Panama or Suez Canal, and, with a draft of over 39 feet, too big to enter certain desirable cruise ports.
In May 1967, Cunard made the historic decision to retire both the Queen Mary and the Queen Elizabeth—the Mary in October, 1967, and the Elizabeth a year later. Earlier planning had called for the Mary to be phased out of service at the end of 1968, with her crew being transferred to the new liner which would then be entering service. It had been hoped that for at least a decade to come the Queen Elizabeth would provide weekly Atlantic crossings, operating with the new liner, during the summer and cruise each winter. Even after her conversion, however, the Elizabeth did not live up to cruising expectations, losing an unacceptable $2,100,000 during the 1966–67 cruise season.
Thus, not counting the new liner, Cunard presently has a fleet of six floating resorts: the Queen Elizabeth (in her final year), the Caronia, Carmania, Franconia, Carinthia, and Sylvania, the Sylvania to be retired next month, however. During 1966, approximately one-fourth of the passengers who sailed in Cunard ships were cruise passengers; the percentage increased in 1967; and a steadily increasing number of seaborne holidays are being conjured up at the line’s Southampton headquarters—spring cruises to the Canary Islands, fall cruises to North Africa and Spain, winter cruises to the West Indies, cross-Channel holidays; summer “new world” holidays. In order to swell the passenger lists, new ports have been added to the Atlantic routes. Cunard liners are now calling at Ireland for the first time since the coming of Irish independence. This past summer the Sylvania and Carmania tied up in Montreal, Canada, for three and four days at a time performing their hotel function for visitors to Expo 67. In an effort to keep the ships as busy as possible, Cunard is even flying Passengers—to Venice, Gibraltar, and Canada—to meet them.
Winter profits in the seaborne leisure industry come, of course, from cruises in such warm and sunny waters as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and the Queens were not built with such activities in mind. Architecturally they were designed for the rigorous North Atlantic service; internally they were designed for the strict segregation of three classes of passengers. Both ships had swimming pools—sunless, indoor pools safe from Atlantic gales; and air conditioning had hardly been an important shipwide consideration. Cunard has thus decided that its new ship, if she is to pay her way, will have to be able to sail the Atlantic against the best passenger liner competition, and then with summer tourists back at work and school, cruise southward to become a floating luxury resort during the winter months.
The keel of the Queen Elizabeth II was laid on 5 July 1965, but few had any idea of what the completed ship would look like until 21 months later when Cunard arranged for the simultaneous unveiling of two, five-foot Q.4 models, one at the Royal Festival Hall in London, the other—with the all-important American business in mind—on board the Queen Mary at New York. As the screens were parted and the models revealed, those in attendance were greeted with a blast of Mexican-brass-style music written for the new ship to let all within hearing realize that they were not looking at a steak-pudding-and-cabbage liner. Leaflets hailed the New Cunarder Punch: 1 Bottle Champagne; 3 ozs. Cognac; 2 ozs. Cointreau; 4 shakes Angostura; 4 shakes Orange Bitters; Garnish: twist of lemon and cherry on stick, also letting it be known that this was to be a swinging ship. What Cunard hopes it is achieving—and it will be difficult to pass judgment until at least the first sailing—is a blending of the best of the line’s transatlantic tradition with the spirit and dynamism considered part of the new holiday image.
One will also have to wait until after the first sailing, scheduled for January 1969, to learn how many cups and saucers are used and how many tons of beef, magnums of champagne, buckets of caviar—and gallons of tropical rum drinks—are consumed by her passengers. But it is known that the 963-foot liner, being some 60 feet shorter and 13 feet narrower than the older Queens, will be able to cruise around the world via the Suez (if open) and Panama Canals. The ship’s most distinctive external feature will be her lone stack, a tall, three-piece, sculptured affair located amidships and designed to keep as much stack gas as possible away from the passengers. For aesthetic reasons, the stack will be black and white instead of the line’s familiar red; however, on either side of the ship the name Cunard will be emblazoned in red (just as a company’s name appears on a jet liner). A modernistic bridge with rakish, forward-slanting facade will perch with a semi-detached appearance above the white upper decks which terrace downwards toward the stern. In all, 6,000 square yards of open deck space, including two lido decks, have been incorporated in the design.
For transatlantic crossings there will still be two indoor pools, each with Turkish and sauna bath facilities for leisure sweating. With the American trade in mind, the liner will have drive-on/drive-off service for 80 automobiles, and perhaps with the same side of the Atlantic in mind, she is being fitted with bow thrusters to help her dock herself when tugs are not available.
The Queen Elizabeth II will steam at a service speed of 28| knots—as fast as her famous Queen predecessors; the difference is that the new liner will be driven by two propellers instead of four, with her 110,000 shaft horsepower coming via double reduction gear turbines from three boilers instead of the 27 in the Mary and 12 in the Elizabeth. With this power plant, less fuel will be consumed than in the older ships and far less machinery space will be required. This accounts in part for the fact that while the new ship will be only 58,000 gross tons compared to the Mary's 81,237 and the Elizabeth's 82,997, she will be able to carry 2,025 passengers compared to their 1,948 and 2,082.
During the last few months, however, the Queen Elizabeth II, standing high and dry at Clydebank, has had more people on board than she probably ever will once at sea. Some 3,000 workers, mostly Scotsmen toting the same kind of tin tea pails their fathers and grandfathers did before them, have been bringing the ship toward her present fitting-out period. Riveters, welders, pipefitters, machinists, and sweepers have trooped in and out of her day after day, working nimbly on the staging girdling her sides, and manning the six cranes tending her. Varnish gives the unpainted areas of her aluminum upper decks a yellowish hue. During their construction, these decks have been spotted with green tents, necessary to shelter the gas-flux torches used in the aluminum welding work. The liner’s two uppermost decks are being added now that she is in the fitting-out basin alongside her building ways, as the yard cranes were not tall enough to swing the aluminum sections on board before launching.
Walking down the still uncarpeted companionways of the Queen Elizabeth II one can see evidences of Cunard’s resort concept that must have perplexed the Glaswegian builders at first; numbers painted on the bulkheads indicated that instead of the traditional lettering of decks, the new liner’s decks (or floors, perhaps) will be first, second, third, etc. As at any good resort, the ship will be able to offer most of her customers an excellent view; three-quarters of her passengers will have portholes in their accommodations.
First, cabin, and tourist classes will be a thing of the past; during cruises, the Queen Elizabeth II will be an open, one-class ship; and during her summer transatlantic ferry service, she will remain open, with the exception of one upper deck of public rooms which will be reserved for a few “premium paying” passengers.
While basically she will be no taller than the Mary and the Elizabeth and will be seven feet less in draft (to get her in and out of those cruise ports) the Queen Elizabeth II will have 13 decks as compared to their 12. The liner’s naval architects have put practically every available cubic foot of space to work—to a point where even the propeller shafts will have to be drawn outboard rather than in, as is usually the case with a ship of her size. From all appearances, however, this use of space does not indicate that the Queen Elizabeth II will have a cramped feeling. Every room, for example, and again, “room” is the preferred term in the new ship, not “cabin” or “stateroom,” will have shower and toilet; beds, rather than upper and lower bunks, will be in the majority, and there will be a large shopping center for those air-conditioned tourists who are so complacent that they do not wish to go ashore.
Since the first sailings of steamers in the early 19th century, passengers have found life difficult and eating nearly impossible during heavy weather. In his American Notes, Charles Dickens reports the misery he endured during a stormy crossing in Cunard’s first ship, the Britannia, 126 years ago. Having described the ship’s hellish movements, he continues: “I say nothing of what may be called the domestic noises of the ship: such as the breaking of glass and crockery, the tumbling down of stewards, the gambols, overhead, of loose casks and truant dozens of bottled porter, and the very remarkable and far from exhilarating sounds raised in their various staterooms by the seventy passengers who were too ill to get up to breakfast.” For environmental reasons such as the above, restaurants have traditionally been located down in the less active regions of ocean liners, with passengers mercifully shielded from a view of the rising and falling sea. All of this was to change, however, with the coming of stabilizers, which were fitted to the Mary and Elizabeth in the 1950s and which are part of the new liner’s original equipment. The combination of a lightweight aluminum superstructure and stabilizers have encouraged her designers to put the Queen Elizabeth II’s restaurants on her upper decks where passengers will be able to dine stably while gazing through large windows at the passing seascape.
Interior decorators are still putting finishing touches to their plans for the liner, but perhaps by imagining a cross-section of modern resort hotel rooms, fitted into a ship’s hull, one can picture the probable interiors and appointments of the Queen Elizabeth II. Many of the 300 deluxe rooms will have refrigerators and television sets; the color schemes throughout are intended to make the new liner bright and cheery enough to please holiday seekers into the 21st century. With this long career planned for her, the Queen Elizabeth II is being constructed with nearly every safety precaution imaginable; U. S. maritime and health officials have been consulted regularly; and the liner should be able to meet any international regulations existing or planned for the foreseeable future. When construction has finished and the new liner has been fitted out, has completed her trials, and has been staffed and provisioned, Cunard will again break with tradition by making her maiden voyage a cruise, not a trophy-seeking dash across the Atlantic.
The Queen Elizabeth II should truly be a pleasurable experience for those who ride in her. Cunard is gambling that many thousands of people will be seeking such pleasure; and expects its new floating resort to earn one-third of the line’s passenger ship profits. The gamble assumes a high order of risk when one considers that supersonic jets and 500-seat jets are nearly with us to add further to the woes of half-empty cruise ships and liners—and that there is airline talk of improving the appointments of the big jets until they, too, are “luxury hotels in the sky.” It is the sort of gamble that one could expect of a famous shipping line in a nation whose maritime heritage is unsurpassed. Yet, even heritages have their limits, and the words coming from a Scotsman who has been with the Queen Elizabeth II from the very beginning, “It is the last time you’ll see one like this being built,” may well be prophetic.