Back on March 2nd ClockTowerTenants featured photos of the Queen Mary 2 docked at the Brooklyn Naval Yard, and more were promised.
I toured that ship in 2004. The QM2 has a “bulbous bow”, explained in Wikipedia:
“The bulb modifies the way the water flows around the hull, reducing drag and thus increasing speed, range, fuel efficiency and stability. Large ships with bulbous bows generally have a 12 to 15 percent better fuel efficiency than similar vessels without them.”
That tour was pretty cool, more like walking a huge suburban shopping mall than a ship. She boasts three and one half acres in deck space, too big for the Panama Canal. Docked in New York, there were deck chairs on the starboard side...
...but far more chairs on the port side. Know why?
Because on the way over from England, the port side is facing south where the sun would be; “port over, starboard home” are the enviable accommodations on an America-bound liner from London, hence the acronym “posh”.
That row of windows at the very top of the command bridge is where the captain calls his orders. She has five swimming pools on board, too. This shallow one is on the top deck for kids.
And this one, surrounded by liquor bars and live music, is for older kids.
There’s a hot tub on deck, too. She carries 3,056 passengers and another 1,253 in officers and crew, about the entire capacity of Radio City on the water.
At 1,132 feet her scale is just enormous, longer than the Eiffel Tower is tall. A standard North/South block in Manhattan is about 264 feet, making her over four city blocks long. Each cubical on the right is a private, furnished outdoor terrace, part of each ocean-fronting stateroom.
Yes, those are people way down there on the dock.
While on the tour I learned that nautical regulation requires that she carry several spare replacement blades for her propellors, but these take up precious interior cubic feet.
So the architects displayed them outside near the bow.
They were bolted to the deck, creating a kind of outdoor sculpture garden.
I don’t know which was more impressive,
her sheer, gargantuan scale or the layered and cascading opulence of her accommodations.
Decide for yourself when CTT posts more photos, next month from the interior.
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