World’s biggest passenger ship leaves berth
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AFP 22 December 2003
SAINT NAZAIRE, France –
The Queen Mary 2,the world’s biggest passenger liner costing 800 million dollars (650 million euros) and with room for 2,600 passengers, left its French birthplace
on December 22 but in subdued mood after a major accident claimed 15 lives.
The luxury QM2, whose top-of-the-range features include a 1,000-seat theatre, a ballroom and five swimming pools, was built over two years by French engineering giant Alstom. She will go into commission next month, taking over from the Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) as the flagship of the historic Cunard line, almost seven decades after her transatlantic predecessor Queen Mary left the Clyde to enter service.
Thousands were in the port of Saint Nazaire in northwestern France Sunday for a special tour of the ship.
But what was planned as an exuberant send-off Monday was toned down to fit the sober mood in the shipyard after the tragedy of November 15.
The victims, many of them family members of men who built the craft, died when a gangway accidentally collapsed during a guided tour, plunging them 20 metres (65 feet) down on to the floor of a dry-dock. More than 30 people were injured.
The345-metre (1,132-foot) long ship was due to leave its berth at around 4 pm (1500 GMT) and move down the estuary of the river Loire towards the open sea, with a French air force display team accompanying the sendoff with a fly-past.
The Queen Mary 2 is to be officially named by Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II in the southern English port of Southampton on January 8, before leaving on its first cruise to Fort Lauderdale, Florida, four days later.
After leaving Saint Nazaire the liner will spend a few days in the Bay of Biscay, dropping in briefly at the port of Vigo in northern Spain, in order to break in the 1,250-member crew. It docks at Southampton on December 27.
In April the QM2 and the QE2 will make the eastbound crossing of the Atlantic in tandem.
The completion of the QM2 in just two years is seen as a moment of great pride for the people of Saint Nazaire, a community that rose from a fishing village of 150 years ago to become France’s greatest shipbuilding town.
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