Damage to QE2 Keel More Severe Than First Thought

Damage to the luxury liner Queen Elizabeth 2 is more extensive than first thought and will force the cruise ship to remain in dry dock for more than a month, officials said Friday.

“The damage extends into the keel of the vessel,” said a spokesman for General Ship Corp. in Boston, where the QE2 is docked.

Leon Katcharian of the National Transportation Safety Board told reporters the keel appeared to be somewhat bent, an indication that the ship’s grounding last week may have been “damaging to all the framing on the inside.”

He said the ship suffered a series of gashes, cracks and dents extending along 400 feet of the hull.

Cunard Lines, the QE2 owner, announced in London that it is inviting bids from shipyards in the United States and Europe for permanent repairs.

“General Shipyard is proceeding at once to make extensive temporary repairs,” spokesman Bill Coughlin said. He added that Cunard Lines, which had hoped to resume service next week, does not expect the vessel to be ready to sail until the end of September.

No one was injured when the liner ran aground on Aug. 7 after leaving the resort island of Martha’s Vineyard for New York City. All 1,815 passengers aboard were evacuated.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which has been surveying the accident area off the southern coast of Massachusetts, has found “a number of uncharted rocks out there,” Lt. Cmdr. John Wilder said Friday.

One rock, 34 1/2 feet deep, attracted the most attention.

“Vegetation is not on the rock the way it is on surrounding rocks, and it has this substance that appears to be red paint,” Wilder said. The QE2’s hull, which is painted red, goes 32 feet below the water line.

“We hope to get an analysis this weekend to get a (paint) match,” Wilder said in a telephone interview from NOAA headquarters in Rockville, Md.

In testimony at a hearing into the cause of the accident, the ship’s second officer in charge of navigation said Friday that the QE2 was late leaving Martha’s Vineyard.

John McKie said the ship left about an hour later than scheduled because of problems with boarding passengers. The QE2 was traveling at 24.5 knots, trying to make up for lost time, when it ran aground and gashes were opened in the 963-foot ship’s hull.

Katcharian said the additional speed probably had little to do with the accident.

The local pilot who was helping guide the liner at the time told investigators he was not worried when the captain overruled him and altered their course slightly. Charts showed sufficient water depth.

John Hadley, a pilot based in Newport, R. I., who has almost 20 years of experience, also said it was possible for the hull to dip below 32 feet because of certain ocean effects.

The QE2 was using British admiralty charts. But Andrew Willis, spokesman for the British Ministry of Defense, said the charts use information from the NOAA, which last surveyed the site of the accident in 1939.

Wilder said the uncharted rocks were between the 1939 markings, which are spaced far apart.