31 Dec 1975 QE2 collides with coral reef in Nassau

[Rod]

The pic shown on Reply #3. Was taken at Southampton. The bulbous bow was cut off and a new bulbous bow welded into place. Newport News was where the plate was welded over the hole. We were told that we would be arrested if we were found taking pictures of the USN Carrier fitting out in the dock alongside, USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69). The old bulbous bow, complete with concrete was still being used to weight test cranes when I retired!
I respectfully dispute the post by Flagship about the repairs in January 77 in "beautiful downtown Bayonne"
I believe they were turbine repairs at that particular time!
I may be wrong.

[John Drew]

I remember this incident also, I was a senior mechanic and the ships diving officer (a BSAC) diving club. I kitted up went under the bulbous bow area to inspect and measure the exact location of the damage with Stan Childs who was Deputy Chief at the time and member of the dive club. We could swim inside the hole as it was 4 foot by 5 if I remember correctly and was just a salt water ballast tank which was almost always kept full. They did try to patch it with concrete but that all washed out leaving a trail which you could see behind the ship as we sailed. In Newport News they put a steel plate on it and my fond memories of Newport News was that all the women around the restaurants and bars were rather fat!!! this was because the law there said that your food bill must exceed your drinking bill and so the women all drank large beers and were rather large.

[Adam Hodson]

Thanks for that interesting story. 

[Boris]

QE2 remained in Port Everglades for 24 hours.

Seeing as it was only a scheduled stop over for a matter of a couple of hours, of course the pax started to become fretful as the hours dragged by, despite irregular tannoys apologising for the delay and advising we would be 'sailing soon'. The Bureau soon became besieged by disgruntled pax demanding to know 'what the hell's going on in this damned ship?'. Unfortunately, instructions from the Captain were that the reason for the delay couldn't be revealed. After many, many hours, and increasingly irate pax, he was finally convinced that some of the truth be revealed. Once the bridge announcement was broadcast, everyone accepted the reason and the disquiet diminished. Lesson: tell it how it is and people will accept it. Try and cover it up and it causes confusion, disquiet and antagonism.

[Twynkle]

Together with the events off Martha's Vineyard (7.8.1992)
and the coral reef off Nassau -  it happened on on New Year's Eve (!)
please do you know whether these are the only two events in QE2's history when she bumped into 'uncharted territory'?
( Links to 1992: https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,217.0.html
http://www.hydro-international.com/content/article/grounding-of-the-queen-elizabeth-2 )
PS - And not forgetting though - her 'nudging' The  Brambles (charted!) in November 2008

[Alan Snelson]

Together with the events off Martha's Vineyard (7.8.1992)
and the coral reef off Nassau -  it happened on on New Year's Eve (!)
please do you know whether these are the only two events in QE2's history when she bumped into 'uncharted territory'?
( Links to 1992: https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,217.0.html
http://www.hydro-international.com/content/article/grounding-of-the-queen-elizabeth-2 )
PS - And not forgetting though - her 'nudging' The  Brambles (charted!) in November 2008

During my time aboard we had two 'nudges' that I remember. One leaving Fort Lauderdale in a very strong Southerly wind. I think Captain Portet was master at the time and although he tried to power us out of the channel we touched ground just before clearing. It was a noticeable jolt but no damage done except for the loss of some antifoul.

Another occasion was coming in to San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ship was swung a little too wide to line up with the pier and we ended up aground on a sandbar for a couple of hours whilst tugs were readied to drag us off again.

Can't really help with specific dates for either of these events unfortunately.

Michael Gallacher gives details about the San Juan Grounding and other incidents that caused damage to the ship on the Hull patches topic

[Trevor Harris]

Would this photo show repairs being made to the damage of the ship?  Looks like there was a patch in the plating on the port side below the anchor.  Thinking if she hit something on the port bow, that might cause a severe list to starboard.



This photo was taken of a slide Commodore Warwick presented onboard QE2 in one of his fascinating talks on the modifications to the ship throughout the years, where he mentioned that the ship had a "nose job."  He did not go into detail on the enxtent of the damage or how it occured, or where the repairs were made if I recall.  Ed note:  not sure on the legality of posting a pic of a slide presented during a presentation onboard QE2.  Delete if necessary. 

Photo looks impressive!

[nyanks1]

I was on that Christmas Cruise, I was 13 at the time, the ship crawled into Port Everglades, laid up 48 hrs, while the hull was evaluated. Finally filling the hole in the hull w/watertight cement, (legends were the Mary was repaired in similar fashion WW2 after sinking her escort vessel).
That night, the sea was a blur from my porthole, she had to be topping 30 knots!. The following morn, we were crawling, advised the cement failed,and Norfolk was next.
I was having a ball,18 day cruise, missing school, the adults were not happy! The night before we disembarked, docked next to the deteriorating "Big - U" in mothballs, my Dad renamed the Q4 Room, the 4Q room! Few flights were avail, my sister was lucky to get one (late for Law school), the majority of the passengers were dumped on a freezing cold cargo pier, to deal w/pissed off southern customs officers abruptly assembled, to process 2,000 wealthy "Yankees", and boy did they take it out on us! The QE abruptly left for dry dock, the 2nd the last bag was removed. They also assigned a decent contingent of crew loaded w/Champagne/Caviar, mixed nuts, and of course "tea sandwiches".
The idea was to inebriate the huge mob of angry passengers aboard the chartered Amtrak train to NYC. I still haven't seen a passenger train this long! The train broke down several times in the 1st few hrs, (Amtrak was in it's infancy), the 3rd time we stopped the English crew mutinied, absconding wall the Champagne, etc. Leaving the passengers to endure the journey north without even water! 24 hrs later we arrived at Grand Central, met w/EMS who carried off several passenger suffering from dehydration! Cunard did give us 50% off the 2076 Christmas Cruise,and we upgraded to the Queens Grill.
Anyway thanx for listening, I grew up on her, sailed on her until Dubai, and she is the one true love of my life that I can't get over!

Barry W......Hi Kevin

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

What an adventure that was! Thank you very much for telling us your memories, including all the things that could go wrong and did go wrong, and the outlandish efforts to placate the passengers with caviar and champagne ... (at least until the crew absconded)! What other ship would have done that?

I am sure you have plenty more stories to tell from your later cruises. How did the ship change? What was the Queen's Grill at Christmas like?

[Alan Dutton]

Another couple of stories about this particular event. The good thing was that we got to spend a few days in Newport News with no passengers on the ship. A bunch of us went to Colonial Williamsburg and had a great time. We were shown a film about the Battle of Yorktown where the Americans beat the British, we were the only ones booing in the back of the cinema booing.
Secondly, the company asked for volunteers from the ship to go on the specially chartered train from Newport News to New York. A couple of my friends volunteered. Seemingly it was the trip from hell. There wasn’t enough food and  the trip took far longer than planned.
It was also really cold in Newport News.