Building the Queen Mary 2: an inside look at the construction of the world's largest cruise liner - Behind The Scenes

Cruise Travel, July-August, 2003 by Theodore W. Scull

On a bright winter's day, sizable cruise-ship silhouettes dominate the flat landscape on the road into St. Nazaire, a French port city sited at the mouth of the Loire. But these leviathans are not about to slip their lines and sail into the Bay of Biscay; they are still under construction at the shipyard Chantiers de l'Atlantique--a pair for Princess, one for Crystal, and a fourth for Mediterranean Shipping Cruises.

A fifth, and by far the largest and most prestigious, is also not yet whole but already stretches more than 900 feet, with additional sections spread along a one-kilometer expanse of concrete. Eventually, when lifted into place and welded, they will form a ship of 1,132 feet and approximately 150,000 gross register tons. An impressive three-deck chunk of superstructure housing penthouse suites embossed with raised letters CUNARD is the giveaway--this is the Queen Mary 2.

In mid-December, the future QM2, in whole and in parts, is simply hull number G32, the shipyard's designation seen on all sections yet to be lifted into place. Lying on the cold pavement are a fully enclosed bridge, longer than the ship is wide, and a curvaceous stem section for the portion above the waterline; and inside a huge shed resides a giant funnel not yet painted in the company's colors, though a tall ladder alongside indicates the famous Cunard red is soon to be applied. Longer than it is high, the stack is designed to clear New York's Verrazano-Narrows Bridge by a scant 10 feet, compared to the current Queen Elizabeth 2's clearance of some 50 feet. That should be some sight when the QM2 first sails through the Narrows into the Big Apple in April 2004.

Going aboard hull no. G32's 900 feet of steel, we climb the atrium's double staircase, cross the cavity that will become the Queens Room, get a feeling for the double-deck size of the Britannia Restaurant, stand where one of the three decks of recessed veranda cabins will go, and walk beneath the still-empty lifeboat davits. Peering through window down into a large open space, we are getting a sneak preview of a cabin with an atrium view. The first and lowest positioned modular veranda cabins will be lifted through an opening in the ship's side, then pushed down the deck on rollers using human power. The highest cabins will require an extension to the present crane to hoist them to Deck 12. The QM2's Deck 13, or Sun Deck, is fully three levels higher that the top of the QE2, where her luxurious bi-level Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth suites are located.

Most cruise ships have public-room ceiling heights that average 10 feet, but aboard the QM2, it's 50 percent higher at 15 feet. Everything seems oversized, yet in proportion, and by summer she will qualify as the world's longest, largest, tallest, and most expensive passenger ship ever built. Designed to be an ocean liner, the 150,000-grt vessel is fracturing the mold of simply becoming just another gargantuan cruise ship.

Like her 34-year-old fleetmate QE2, the QM2 will be required to handle the pounding and stress that is normal life on the North Atlantic express run, a punishing task far removed from leisurely loops in the Caribbean or up Alaska's protected Inside Passage. The QM2 will be required to maintain an exacting six-night/five-day schedule between New York and Southampton, England, averaging just over 24 knots regardless of adverse weather conditions. If she should fall behind, it's not merely a question of skipping a port, because there are none. Instead the QM2 will be able to call upon an incredible force of reserve power that can propel her up to nearly 30 knots. In high seas the liner's slender bow will slice through the waves, while in the same conditions the blunt bow of a typical cruise ship endures such pressure and stress that speed has to be greatly reduced.

For example, during a recent crossing of the Atlantic in December following this shipyard visit, the QE2 maintained a speed of 21-22 knots in a Force 9 (strong gale) storm without undue discomfort to the passengers, while most cruise ships would have had to slow to 10 to 15 knots. But because Captain Paul Wright pushed her up to more than 26 knots for the two days before the forecasted storm, the QE2 arrived in New York right on time. The new Cunard liner is designed to handle this same scenario.

In fact, a true passenger liner has not been built since the QE2 was completed in 1969, and at this French yard not since the mid-size Israeli liner Shalom in 1964. Chantiers de l'Atlantique has a proud 140-year history of building ocean liners, beginning with a 3,200-grt sidewheel steamship for the fledgling Compagnie Generale Transatlantique through to the four-funneled France of 1912, the three-stack Paris and Ile de France in the roaring '20s, and ultimately and arguably the finest liner ever built, the 83,000-grt Normandie of 1935.

As with these North Atlantic greyhounds, to add strength, the QM2's steel hull, from the keel to Boat Deck, is 50 percent thicker than for a ship cruising the Caribbean, the Inside Passage, or the Mediterranean, and extra care has been taken in welding procedures and stiffening the main bulkheads. The increased weight adds to the cost of propelling the ship at high speeds. Carnival Corporation, Cunard Line's parent company, specified a 40-year fatigue life, perhaps the first time for such a lengthy shelf-life expectation. All this adds up to roughly a 30 percent premium paid for these now highly unusual specifications.