Gales Cancel QE2’s ‘End of Era’ Party

Gales in the English Channel delayed the Queen Elizabeth 2 and forced its owners to scrap a celebration marking the end of the liner’s travel by steam power.

The 67,000-ton luxury liner was four hours late arriving at Southampton on Saturday, officials said Sunday.

The owners, the Cunard shipping line, had wanted to fly six former QE2 captains to the vessel for a party during the last hours of the voyage. But heavy seas and strong winds forced cancellation of that plan, as well as a water-jet salute and a brass band at dockside.

The QE2 is scheduled to leave Southampton early today for refitting at the Lloyd Werft shipyard in Bremerhaven, West Germany. The six-month project will cost at least $129 million.

In Bremerhaven, the liner’s steam turbine engines are to be replaced with nine diesel electric engines, ending Cunard’s 146 years of steam voyages across the Atlantic.

A Cunard news release said the new engines will preserve the QE2’s life “well into the 21st Century.”