The QE2
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Like her predecessors, the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, the Cunard liner was built and launched from John Brown's shipyard at Clydebank.
The shipbuilder who headed the design team died in the year 2000, aged 99.
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Take me back to the CLYDE BUILT page please.
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Take me back to the INDEX page please.
Take me back
The last of the great Queens to be launched onto the world's oceans was the liner QE2
(NOTE; Thanks to Elspeth M Duncan for correcting my mistake of naming this ship Queen Elizabeth II - EVERYONE knows there has never been a Queen Elizabeth II of Scotland and the ship was specifically named QE2 to acknowledge this! SORRY FOLKS - I HAVE NO EXCUSE!)
Unlike her sisters, however, she was not designed solely for the trans-Atlantic passenger service - modern commercial necessities demanding it be a cruise liner as well.
She was 40 ft shorter than her older sisters, but because aluminium predominated over steel for her super-structure, she was 25,000 tonnes lighter.
Work started in 1965 and she made her maiden voyage to New York in May 1969.
She was the first ship ever to be awarded five stars by the RAC - an honour usually reserved for the world's finest hotels.
In 1971, she rescued passengers and crew from sinking French liner Antilles and the following year was subject to a bomb hoax.
And like the other Queens, she was seconded to war duties, becoming a troop-carrier during the 1982 Falklands War.
Today she is the only ship still operating a regular trans-Atlantic passenger service but spends four months a year on a world cruise.
Sir John Brown, a naval architect at Clydebank-based John Brown Shipyard, was also credited with the design of the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, and was involved in the building of some 400 ships.
Although he had the same name as the yard owners, he was not related. His death came just days after the site closed.
MOMENT OF PRIDE - The launch in 1967
