My last QE2 trip, Mediterranean, late July 2008

[Rob Lightbody]

Hi everyone,

I now have access to the old Windows XP computer (dating from 2005 ) and have transferred and backed up everything wanted off it. This included the rest of the photos I took on my last QE2 trip. I have just made an album on Flickr so they're separated from the rest of my photos. I daren't embed the photos here since there are 108 of them in all and Rob won't appreciate me testing the forum's server or software! Here's a link to my album on Flickr of them instead:

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4EnWgT

Hope they enable all who travelled on her to relive happy memories and give an insight into what she was like onboard for those who never had the chance to experience QE2!

Thomas

Hi Thomas,

I'd loved to see your photos, but it says I don't have permission?

Thanks,

- Rob

[Thomas Hypher]

Hi Rob,

That's strange indeed. I've signed out of my Flickr and here's the link to the appropriate album for this topic as a guest on Flickr. This should work now as I know that sharing content when signed in to a website can cause a lot of trouble!

https://flic.kr/s/aHsm4EnWgT


Thomas

P.S. I've followed you on Flickr too partly if the above doesn't work!

[Thomas Hypher]

From what I remember, and given the order of the photos, on our last night aboard I (and maybe my Dad) walked around the ship one last time knowing that in her active, in service form she would be just a memory the next day and forever more.

She was quite quiet in terms of people (most were asleep) but she was very much alive and active.

[Rob Lightbody]

It's working now, thanks n

Cracking photos, taken just days before i stepped aboard (10th august)

[Thomas Hypher]

Hi everyone,

As we know the QE2 "best of webcam" refreshes every time the front page of the forum is loaded. By coincidence it just refreshed showing her in Corsica, at anchor, on the same day I took the below photos and my Dad recorded the below video! I can now date this stop in the cruise. Our last cruise also happened to be her last visit to Monaco as far as I'm aware (a few days later, on the return leg back to Southampton), a couple of photos of that included too.

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr

QE2 Mediterranean cruise, July 2008 (my last trip on QE2) by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr


Thomas

[Louis De Sousa]

Nice photos

[Thomas Hypher]

I have subsequently learnt that our 28th July 2008 visit to Monaco (Monte Carlo is just the name of the famous casino apparently) was QE2's last ever. My Dad recorded video that day too, we all didn't know the historical significance (besides it being on our last QE2 trip). Here's a link to my Dad's video:

The anchor raising procedure QE2 had is not common these days (the bell bit at least) since it is normally hidden from view - QM2 being an example of this.


Thomas

[Lynda Bradford]

Fantastic video footage.  I cannot remember the ringing of the bell, but I may have done and forgot. 

What is the purpose or tradition of ringing the bell when raising the anchor?

[Thomas Hypher]

Fantastic video footage.  I cannot remember the ringing of the bell, but I may have done and forgot. 

What is the purpose or tradition of ringing the bell when raising the anchor?

It's to audibley mark the passage of each fathom if I remember correctly. Some anchor chains will visually show this but, surprisingly, QE2's doesn't appear to show this. However I think it's more of a tradition these days as the anchor machinery will work out and display as such along with the depth equipment ships have these days (sonar etc.). Did QE2 use the bell when lowering the anchor so how many fathoms that were played out were known? Michael? I never heard or saw as such.

As my Dad says in his video description on YouTube, you can hear the anchor chains settling in the anchor chain locker on the deck below at around the 47 second mark! This is significant as it is not the actual anchor that holds a ship in place but the weight of the attached anchor chain.

Thomas

[Twynkle]

It's to audibley mark the passage of each fathom if I remember correctly. Some anchor chains will visually show this but, surprisingly, QE2's doesn't appear to show this. However I think it's more of a tradition these days as the anchor machinery will work out and display as such along with the depth equipment ships have these days (sonar etc.). Did QE2 use the bell when lowering the anchor so how many fathoms that were played out were known? Michael? I never heard or saw as such.

As my Dad says in his video description on YouTube, you can hear the anchor chains settling in the anchor chain locker on the deck below at around the 47 second mark! This is significant as it is not the actual anchor that holds a ship in place but the weight of the attached anchor chain.

Thomas

Yes - The great rumble from the anchoring process shook the bow end;
well worth getting up early to experience (on the 'Bit Beneath the Bridge')
Definitely, Thomas -  the foredeck bell was rung in Geirangerfjord in August 2005 and 2008!
The black 'balloon' thingy (? it’s Name, Bob/ Reltco!!)  was hoisted as well. 
The cable/ chain was also marked for measuring depths.
So sorry, Mods - This is off topic....

[Thomas Hypher]

Yes - The great rumble from the anchoring process shook the bow end;
well worth getting up early to experience (on the 'Bit Beneath the Bridge')
Definitely, Thomas -  the foredeck bell was rung in Geirangerfjord in August 2005 and 2008!
The black 'balloon' thingy (? it’s Name, Bob/ Reltco!!)  was hoisted as well. 
The cable/ chain was also marked for measuring depths.
So sorry, Mods - This is off topic....

It's good to have discussions like this...as the original creator of this topic I don't mind unless it's against forum rules. In my Dad's video above you cannot see the mark her anchors normally had to mark the fathoms which surprised me. Good to know it was done when lowering the anchor too as you said happened in Geirangerfjord. The black ball is used on anchored ships or those with restricted manoeuvrability such as the chain ferry from Sandbanks to Swanage (near Bournemouth where I live). On the chain ferry it has two bridge positions, one for each direction and the black ball is hoisted appropriately.

We remember the washing machine noise her bow thrusters made before they stopped using them in the last couple of years. We had bow cabins some of the time and it woke us up lol. The bow vibrated at the same time too.

[Thomas Hypher]

Here's my Dad's video of her cruising south to the Med through a very calm and sunny Bay of Biscay on the same 2008 trip (I spent about two whole days being badly seasick during our run through there in October 2004 - she was 7 hours late out of Southampton on that trip and we touched 30 knots several times but that's for another topic for that trip I'll get round to making sometime). The overriding sounds you hear are of the galley fans and vents from the "box" and maybe also from under the starboard side of her signal mast where some such vents and fans also are. The galley would have been preparing dinner and produced lovely food/cooking smells (cooking fish for example) also when leaving Southampton.

Thomas

[Thomas Hypher]

Sorry to post yet again, but the date of my first bridge visit appears to have been 28th July 2005 (if the camera date is correct - it seems to match where we were on the cruise though from memory and looking at her itinerary on this webpage: http://www.qe2.org.uk/itinerary_2005.html ). 3 years to the day before her final Monaco visit on our final trip onboard, an interesting coincidence I think.

Dad's QE2 Mediterranean digital photos, July 2005 by Thomas Hypher, on Flickr


Thomas

[Thomas Hypher]

Whoops, sorry everyone - I may be mistaken to when her final visit to Monaco was. The website I linked in my last post gives the 26th July 2008, can anyone confirm this (Michael?) since the website's itinerary also list her final refit as being in Bremerhaven when it was the wetdock alongside in Southampton that took a shorter period of time meaning more final cruises could be fitted in. The camera I used was faulty date and time wise as I remember trying to set it at the time but couldn't. At any rate the date of my second bridge visit (my dad's first) was on the way back to Southampton so appears to have been on either the 29th or 30th July 2008 which would be just over 3 years to the day of my first bridge visit - more of a coincidence!

Thomas

[Michael Gallagher]

Thomas - you are correct, the final visit to Monte Carlo / Monaco was 26 July 2008. The itinerary for that trip:

20 July     Southampton
22 July     Lisbon
24 July     Propriano
25 July     Civitavecchia
26 July     Monte Carlo
27 July     Barcelona
28 July     Gibraltar
31 July     Southampton