Bigger Than Biggest

In reference to a 96,000-ton vessel (“Boom in Shipbuilding Continues,” March 7), your article states Cunard’s 80,774-ton Queen Mary was previously the largest passenger ship. Cunard’s Queen Elizabeth, launched in 1940 and destroyed by fire in 1972, was an 83,673-ton ship. It was longer and heavier than the Queen Mary.

JOHN NAIRN

Redondo Beach

Shirley Slater and Harry Basch reply: The reader is correct. The Queen Elizabeth was slightly larger than the Queen Mary, as was the Normandie, which burned in New York Harbor in 1942. We intended to say that the Queen Mary is the largest passenger ship still afloat.