Bomb threats, champagne and dead whales – 50 remarkable facts about the QE2

Fifty years after the QE2 ocean liner was launched by the Queen, and almost a decade after its retirement, the great ship is still gathering dust in a UAE dock. We present a fact for each year of its existence. 

1. In excess of 70,000 bottles of champagne were drunk every year, on average, on the QE2, prior to her retirement in 2008.

2. The ship’s owners were subject to a bomb threat and ransom demand in 1972, made when the QE2 was 1,000 miles from land. SAS and bomb disposal officers were scrambled to the ship, but the demand turned out to be a hoax played by a shoe salesman from New York.

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3. The QE2 consumed around 18 tons of a fuel an hour, or 433 tons per day, with one gallon of fuel moving the ship around 15 metres – less than the length of a cricket pitch.

4. The QE2’s rudder alone weighed 80 tons – around the same as 10 double-decker buses.

5. An estimated one million admirers were present to see the vessel call in to Liverpool in July 1990, the first time the QE2 had visited the city.

6. The QE2’s total power output was enough to light a city the size of Southampton.

7. The QE2 could sail backwards (at a full speed of 19 knots) faster than most cruise ships sail forwards. She was the fastest merchant ship still in operation at the time of her retirement.

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8. Cunard’s first ship, the Britannia, would have squeezed into QE2’s Grand Lounge.

9. The amount of fruit juice used annually on board the QE2 would have filled the ship’s swimming pools nearly eight times over.

10. The QE2 was not named after the current Queen but rather after the wife of King George VI. This explains the convention of using the actual number – i.e. Queen Elizabeth 2 – rather than the Roman numerals of Queen Elizabeth II.

11. She hit a sandbank in the Solent on her final voyage, was grounded in 1992 after striking an "uncharted" object off the eastern US, and also ran into trouble off the coast of Nova Scotia.

12. Beatrice Muller, from New Jersey, used the QE2 as a retirement home for 14 years, paying around ￡3,500 a month for the privilege. "My priorities on this ship are ballroom dancing, playing duplicate bridge, and trying not to eat - not necessarily in that order," she told Telegraph Travel in 2006."I like all kinds of dancing, but right now I'm not dancing sambas or the cha cha - I don't want to jump on my new hip just yet." 

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13. The 2,500 tea bags used each day on the QE2 would have supplied the average tea-drinking family for a year.

14. The QE2 was launched by the Queen on the Clyde in 1969, the same year the Apollo 11 mission reached the moon. The Queen used the same golden scissors that her mother had used to inaugurate the Queen Elizabeth and her grandmother had used to launch the Queen Mary.

15. The vessel boasted the largest cinema at sea (with a capacity of over 531).

16. Cunard paid ￡7.5m to compensate QE2 passengers after a trip dubbed the "cruise to hell", in December 1994. The ship began a voyage before a ￡30m refit was completed, leading to complaints of exploding lavatories, among other things.

17. The ship’s fuel oil tank capacity of 4,381.4 tons was enough for 10 days’ sailing at 32.5 knots, allowing it to travel around 7,800 miles without stopping.

18. 277,000 metres of clingfilm were used on the ship every year, enough to go around the QE2 approximately 731 times.

19. In January 1971, the QE2 rescued passengers from French liner Antilles, which had run aground near Mustique and eventually sank. The passengers from the ailing vessel were eventually landed safely in Barbados.

20. In 1995, Southampton officials criticised food hygiene on board, threatening legal action after inspecting the ship's Queen's Grill.

21. The ship carried around 2.5 million passengers in total – or about the equivalent of a city the size of Budapest.

22. Approximately 600,000 litres of beverage were consumed annually on board the QE2.

23. The ship circumnavigated the globe a full 25 times.

24. The QE2 marked her 40th anniversary voyage with a “lap of honour” sailing around Britain.

25. The ship had the only synagogue at sea, which incidentally was also the only room on the ship that had remained unaltered since 1969.

26. Passengers consumed nearly 20 tons of lobster and 1 ton of caviar each year.

27. The vessel was the only ship to be awarded five stars for its accommodation by the RAC.

28. The QE2 cost slightly more than ￡29 million to build in 1969 – after which Cunard spent more around 15 times that amount on refits and refurbishments.

29. The QE2’s total sailing time was the equivalent of 20 years non-stop motion – or 175,290 hours spent on the waves.

30. The QE2 was Cunard’s flagship vessel for 35 years, from 1969 to 2004, a position now occupied by the Queen Mary 2.

31. The ship completed 801 Atlantic crossings in its lifetime.

32. The QE2 was powered by nine diesel electric engines, each the size of a double-decker bus. A maximum of seven operated at any one time, allowing maintenance staff to do their work without affecting the ship’s cruising speed.

33. The QE2 operated with the most powerful propulsion plant on a non-military vessel.

34. The ship included a shopping arcade with 11 boutiques, including a branch of Harrods.

35. The QE2’s desalination equipment allowed 1,000 tons of fresh water to be produced each day.

36. The QE2 has had a total of 25 captains.

37. The largest marine motors ever built were used to power the QE2 on its voyages.

38. The ship’s engineers wore stripes of royal purple – as King George V decreed that engineers should following the loss of all the engineers on the Titanic in 1912.

39. In May 1982, the QE2 was requisitioned for the Falklands War as a troop transport, a decision which reportedly gave the then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher a sleepless night. The ship sailed for South Georgia with 3000 troops aboard, arriving back in Southampton on June 11, 1982.

40. In March 1975, the QE2 made its first transit of Panama Canal, making it the biggest ship ever to travel through the canal. There was less than a foot to spare as the ship made its way through the canal locks.

41. In July 1990, the Queen became the first reigning monarch to go on a voyage on a commercial liner with passengers.

42. The QE2’s 1000th voyage was one of its many transatlantic crossings, from New York to Southampton. It took place in June 1995.

43. Nakheel purchased the vessel for around ￡50.5 million, with the stated intention of converting the vessel into a floating hotel. Those plans stalled in 2013, after the economic downturn, and it remains languishing in Port Rashid, Dubai.

44. In June 1970, the QE2 crossed the Atlantic in a record time of three days, 20 hours and 42 minutes.

45. The QE2’s cocktail bar, the Chart Room, featured the piano from the original Queen Mary.

46. According to National Archives documents, Cunard asked the Ministry of Defence to supply an elite anti-terrorism unit for the ship's planned cruise on the 25th anniversary of the founding of Israel in 1973. In the event, the MOD supplied 26 elite commandos instead, who apparently made the most of the trip.

47. In 1995, the QE2 managed to withstand a 30-metre high wave breaking across her bow during Hurricane Luis.

48. Theft was apparently rife during the construction of the vessel and some of the shipworkers were allegedly stealing from the ship faster than the yard could build her.

49. The QE2 had the largest library on the seas, with over 6,000 titles on board.

50. In 2001, the QE2 sailed into Lisbon with a 19-metre long finback whale impaled on her bow.