UK Broadsheets - Tuesday December 23 rd , 2003

The Times
World's biggest liner sets sail
By Adam Sage

THE Queen Mary 2, the world's largest ocean liner, yesterday left the shipyard in western France where it was built after being handed to its British owner, Cunard Line.

Tens of thousands of people watched as the vessel, which is twice as big as the QE2, sailed out of St Nazaire on a voyage to Southampton, where it will be formally named by the Queen on January 8. French Air Force fighter jets flew over the ship three times as it moved up the Loire estuary and the crew unveiled a banner reading: "Merci Saint-Nazaire".

Celebrations in the shipbuilding town were muted after an accident that killed 15 people and injured 28 when a quayside gangway leading to the ship collapsed a month ago. The victims were mostly cleaners or employees' relatives who had been invited to visit the vessel.   There were 50 people on the makeshift gangway when it fell apart.

Built at a cost of £453 million, the QM2 is 1,138ft long, 238ft high — as tall as a 21-storey building — and can accommodate 2,600 passengers. There will be 1,300 crew members. "I was absolutely surprised today. I've seen ships come off shipyards, and this is the first time that I've seen a completed one," Rémy Arca, director of Cunard France, said. "There is nothing left to do to it."

The QM2, which weighs 150,000 tonnes, will dock in Southampton this week after a cruise to Vigo in Spain while the crew undertakes technical tests. The maiden voyage of the world's largest ever
liner, from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale in Florida, is scheduled for January 12.

The ship will not be the biggest for long. Royal Caribbean Cruises has placed an order with the Kvaerner Masa-Yards in Finland for a vessel, the Ultra Voyager, that will be able to accommodate 3,600 passengers. It is due to enter service in 2006.

For the Chantiers de l'Atlantique shipyard in St Nazaire, which beat Belfast's Harland and Wolff for the contract, troubled waters may lie ahead. There is only one ship on its order books, which will
be delivered in April, and its owner, Alstom, the French group, has indicated that it wants to sell off the shipyard.
 

Flypast as largest cruise liner sets sail for first time
Paul Webster in Paris
The Guardian

As the tide at Saint-Nazaire reached its flood yesterday just before 4pm, Queen Mary 2, the world's biggest liner, sailed into the Atlantic from the Loire estuary flying its British colours for the first time. Hours earlier, the Union and Cunard flags had been run up the mast, after a cheque for $800m was handed over to the French shipyard which built the ship in just under two years.

The houses in the port were lit up as the ship sailed out of the Loire estuary and thousands of people gathered to wave torches in the twilight.

But the handover ceremony and departure was a muted affair except for an air force flyover. Plans for a huge send-off with a firework display were dropped because the 20,000 shipworkers from all over the world who built the vessel were in mourning for the 15 colleagues and friends who died when they fell into the dry dock when a gangway collapsed on November 15.

The shipyard's mood has not been lightened by its empty order book.   It has built 22 cruise liners in the past five years; the last of them will sail in April. Despite a recovery in the cruise industry
since September 11, French dockyards are losing out to Finland, Germany and Italy.

A new American-financed liner to be built in Finland will measure 339 metres - six metres shorter than the QM2, but able to carry a thousand more passengers.

The QM2 will berth in Southampton on Friday after a test run to Spain in preparation for its naming by the Queen on January 8.

The maiden cruise will start on January 14 and will be followed b y six-day transatlantic crossings between Southampton and New York, carrying about 2,600 passengers and 1,300 crew members.

Prices for the maiden trip range from about €3,100 (£2,182), to €41,200 (£28,997) for two royal suites with more space than the average house.
 

Telegraph
Thousands cheer as Queen Mary 2 sails into service
By Henry Samuel in Paris

The world's biggest passenger liner, the Queen Mary 2, set sail from its French shipyard yesterday after being handed over to its British owners.

The ship's 1,250 hands were on deck to salute tens of thousands of spectators as the 1,100ft vessel was steered slowly out of the Saint Nazaire shipyard on the Atlantic coast and along the Loire estuary.

A tricolour flypast from jets of the Patrouille de France, the aerobatic display team of the French air force, replaced fanfares and fireworks out of respect for the families of 15 people who died when a gangway collapsed on a visitors' day five weeks ago.

Earlier in the day the liner had been handed over to the Cunard line and its British captain, Ronald Warwick, whose father William was the first commander of the Queen Elizabeth 2. The QM2, which cost £450 million, will go to Vigo in Spain for technical tests and to allow the crew to familiarise itself with the ship before docking in its home port of Southampton on Friday.

The Queen will officially name the gigantic ship - as tall as a 23-storey building - next month. Its two-week maiden voyage, from Southampton to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, is scheduled to begin four
days later. Prices range from £2,200 for a cabin with no outside view up to £29,000 for the most expensive suite.

The ship has space for 2,600 passengers. Its amenities include a planetarium, a 1,000-seat theatre, five swimming pools and 10 restaurants. It also has a prison.

But its title as the largest cruise ship in the world will be short - lived. The Ultra Voyager, a Finnish liner designed to accommodate 3,600 passengers, is to enter service in 2006.
 

The Independent
Rebirth of the grand ocean liner or cursed nostalgia? The ship they call 'Bloody Mary' takes to the seas
By John Lichfield in Paris

About 4 o'clock this afternoon the most immense passenger ship the world has seen - double the weight of the QE2 and three times the weight of Titanic - will glide from the harbour at Saint-Nazaire on the French Atlantic coast.

An orchestra will play God Save the Queen and the Marseillaise; French fighter planes will fly overhead and up to 100,000 people are expected to line the harbour mouth, carrying lanterns and torches.

They will salute, with mingled sadness and joy, the departure from her birthplace of the Queen Mary 2 - the longest, tallest, widest and heaviest passenger ship ever constructed; the first ocean liner to be built for 34 years and maybe the last.

The QM2, touched by tragedy even before she was completed, represents a vast, ocean-going gamble for Cunard, the British shipping line which ordered her three years ago. She is not just a floating hotel - with five swimming pools, 14 restaurants, 24 massage parlours and an art gallery - she is a true, ocean liner in the Cunard tradition.

The ship will be capable of crossing the Atlantic in six days. Her engines can generate enough power to light a city of 300,000 people.

But many voices in the shipping and cruise industry have wondered aloud whether there is an economic future for such a luxuriously appointed, speedy, highly engineered and technically advanced ship.

They suggest that the real salvation for a cruise market - holed below the water line by the terrorist attacks in the United States in September 2001 - is for larger, slower, floating holiday resorts which can meander around the South Seas, offering a wider range of cheap to expensive cruises.

There are good reasons, they say, why no one has bothered to build a real ocean liner since 1969 (Cunard's QE2 was the last).

Cunard insists that the QM2, designed internally to recall the great Art Nouveau days of the ocean liners in the first half of the 20th century, will be able to perform both roles.

She will be a true liner for those who want to travel to the US in superb, retro style; she will also be a leisurely cruise ship. The ship's first year of cruising and Atlantic crossings, starting next month with a trip to Fort Lauderdale and the Caribbean, is already almost fully booked.

More exuberant celebrations planned by the town and shipyard at Saint-Nazaire to say farewell to the Queen have been cancelled since last month when 15 local people died after a gangway which linked
the liner to the harbour-side collapsed.

There have been suggestions that this somehow makes the QM2 a cursed ship even before it joins the Cunard fleet; even before it is named by the Queen at Southampton, its home port, on 12 January.

In truth, the accident had nothing to do with the quality of the workmanship on the ship itself. The makeshift gangway had been built by a contractor to a weaker specification than normal, for reasons
that remain unclear. More than 50 people were allowed to stand on it at the same time, as they queued for an open day at the ship.

Saint-Nazaire, preferred by Cunard to Harland and Wolff in Belfast, is immensely proud of its achievement in building such a gargantuan and advanced ship in two years within the £500m budget. But even in Saint-Nazaire, the QM2 has come to be known as "Bloody Mary" or the "Red Queen".

The disaster has been taken as an ill omen - if not for the ship then for the shipyard. The yard, Les Chantiers de L'Atlantique has received no new orders for cruise ships for almost three years. When the QM2 departs, it will leave behind an almost empty shipyard, with just one smaller cruise ship and a methane tanker nearing completion.

The size of the QM2 takes the breath away. She is 345 metres long - as long as the Eiffel Tower is tall, and 50 metres longer than the QE2. She is 41 metres broad, double the width of the Titanic. She is 74 metres high - 62 metres above the water line, the equivalent of a building 23 storeys high.

In terms of weight - 150,000 tonnes - she is more than double the size of the QE2 (but at 30 knots, just as fast) and more than triple the size of the ill-fated Titanic, built in 1912. It would take a sizeable and determined iceberg to sink her.

The QM2 has an art gallery, with 300 works on show; a theatre with 1,000 seats; a ball-room; a thalassotherapy clinic; a planetarium; 2,000 bath-rooms and no fewer than 3,000 telephone lines.

There will be 1,300 crew members and 3,000 passengers - paying between £1,000 and £20,000 for the six day crossing between Southampton and New York. The most luxurious single cabin is split-level and 209 metres square, with a view of the ocean equivalent to that commanded by Captain Ronald Warwick from the bridge.

This afternoon, she will set sail for Vigo in northern Spain, for a final sea trial before she reaches Southampton for the first time on Saturday.

"She is a magnificent ship. Top of the range," said Georges Azouze, head of France's leading cruise company, Costa Croisières. But he added: "The problem is that the cruise industry is trying to get
away from its old fashioned and expensive image and the Queen Mary takes us straight back there. She is based on nostalgia for the Titanic. That's not going to attract the new customers we need."

Peter Shanks, senior vice-president of Cunard, gave a more positive view: "QM2 will be the finest transatlantic, ocean liner ever. We are confident that she will stun guests when they board for the
first time in January."

But the QM2 will not retain her record as the world's largest passenger ship for long. The Royal Caribbean cruise line, competitor to Cunard, has recently placed an order for a 160,000-tonne, 3,600
passenger vessel with the Masa shipyard in Finland, one of Saint-Nazaire's great rivals. The Ultra-Voyager - perhaps significantly - will be a slow, floating resort, not a speedy liner.