QE2 Portholes (general discussion)

[Peter Mugridge]

What is the small vent hole near the left of the picture in #12 for?

[Bob C.]

I don't see a vent hole.  Picture 12 that I see is a bulbous bow on shot of Q4 just before launch with the bagpipe band to the lower left and what looks like the photographer's finger in the left and upper edges.

[Rob Lightbody]

Possibly by dropping plumb lines, and in QE2's case - many times...?
in this image it looks as if they started at the top and worked down!
http://www.clydebankrestoration.com/gallery2/main.php?g2_itemId=589

Thats an AWESOME Collection of photos - WOW!

[Peter Mugridge]

I don't see a vent hole.  Picture 12 that I see is a bulbous bow on shot of Q4 just before launch with the bagpipe band to the lower left and what looks like the photographer's finger in the left and upper edges.

I mean the picture in post #12 on this thread... 

[Bob C.]

Ah, now I see it. Most likely a drain of some sort, maybe for the A/C?

[highlander0108]

To add to this discussion, the portholes were originally aluminum!  Commodore Warwick had a slide on this in his lexture on QE2 memories.  He said that the portholes were originally aluminum to save weight.  Image the weight savings there, but there was a big problem.  Despite using material to isolate the aluminum from the steel hull in the same fashion as the hull/deck joint, these began to deteriorate.  They were eventually all replaced with the units currently in the ship.  A funny side note that he mentioned was that he had saved a few of the aluminum portholes up in his attic, but found them later completely disintegrated and the eBay items were a total loss, to his dismay!  Photo below was taken during his lexture on QE2 on the Farewell to the UK voyage.

[Rod]

The vent would be a drain. Correct if that was 3 deck it might have been a pantry drain. Depending on where the cabin was. A/c drains went into the general scupper system until later on in life when the a/c drains were used for laundry water.

"There is really only one riveted strip on the QE2 body, where the steel hull meets the aluminium superstructure."

I beg to differ.
I think you will find that the bilge keels were rivetted to the hull.

[Alistair]

Just came across this and loved the set of launch and sail-away pictures which i had never seen before. Very high quality colour pictures indeed as most of my memories from that day seem to be in black and white (and 405 lines too!) 

[Bob C.]

Take a look at the 3 sec mark in the video at this link.  Are the 1 Deck suite oval portholes in the process of being cut?

http://www.britishpathe.com/video/youth-on-q4/query/Clydebank