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QE2 leaves Southampton today (11/11/08)


Scummer
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Sailing club meeting tonight, and our slip is just across and upriver of the QE2. The best place, apart from Southampton itself, will be Calshot Spit. A nice pint in the bar, and then watch her come down Southampton Water, and out in the Solent. The big turn around the Bramble bank, and gone forever. I've known the QE2 to enter and exit the Solent via the western approaches, but it's 4 days to a spring high tide, so it'll be the usual route. I'm not sure if the bridge cam is still operating.

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Hopefully a bigger turn than this morning, eh.

 

Yes indeed, or she'll need to pop in here:

 

726396

 

My excuse to post an excellent photo, via the Echo.

 

I read that the Echo says the QE2 will face the final ignominy of having her engines torn out and her home port of Southampton painted over.

 

No. The engines will be removed, and her home port name will be painted over. But it won't be any humiliation like they are trying to portray it. It'll mean that he QE2 will live on instead of being sold for scrap. And we'll be able to see her still on Google Earth, and Dubai Phil will no doubt see her if he cranes his neck a certain way.

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Saw her off with hundreds of other people at Calshot last night. She looked good, and we'll never see her like of a cruise liner again. She may become a floating hotel, but the ships that replace her are motorised hotels with hulls. They don't even sail as fast as her, as QE2, the oldest cruise ship bids goodbye, and so goes, into retirement, the fastest large passenger ship still running. Until she stops, that is.

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Yes indeed, or she'll need to pop in here:

 

726396

 

My excuse to post an excellent photo, via the Echo.

 

I read that the Echo says the QE2 will face the final ignominy of having her engines torn out and her home port of Southampton painted over.

 

No. The engines will be removed, and her home port name will be painted over. But it won't be any humiliation like they are trying to portray it. It'll mean that he QE2 will live on instead of being sold for scrap. And we'll be able to see her still on Google Earth, and Dubai Phil will no doubt see her if he cranes his neck a certain way.

 

Yep, busy week at work next week, but if we can, we'll likely be down there to see her come in, reckon we'll crack a Bullfrog across her bows to welcome her properly in a Dubai sort of way at some point soon.

 

It's sad that she'll no longer be sailing, but then how many of us ever actually could afford a way to travel on her? So at least this way we can still see her even if they plan to remove her funnel and replace it with a ****tail bar or something. Much better idea than allowing the hulk to burn, half sink and then rust in some far off harbour.

 

(Mind you with the lack of local health & safety laws down here, wouldn't put it past some undertrained painter to leave his blow-torch running and set fire to her)

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Went down to Mayflower Park and lol'd at all the people stuck in traffic and missed it.

 

Yes. As mentioned, we went to Calshot, not only to have the best view in the house, but to get away from the crowds at Mayflower Park. There were hundreds at Calshot Spit, but we all had a superb view. And the Spinnaker Bar did a heck of a lot of service too.

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Mayflower park was fine for us, plenty of room near the big screen and parked at Leisure World and walked (also free parking)

 

All the other numpties try to park as close as possible blocking the entire area. lol @ them

 

Hmm.. The first thing that happened on the way out of Southampton was a traffic jam at around the Jacobs Gutter Lane area. My first reaction was.. oh f***, we've really miscalculated this one. But it cleared almost immediately, and we had a good clear run down. Parking was remarkably easy, despite there being hundreds [possibly thousands] of people there.

 

It was the thought of a jam packed Mayflower Park that started the idea of going to Calshot, in the first place.

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Hi all I have created a petition group on Facebook to get the grand old ladies funnel back to Southampton as the new owners plan to take it off and replace it with a hideous glass penthouse!

 

I want to gauge people's feelings/level of support before I start a 'proper' petition so if you're on Facebook please join and tell all your friends. Below is the link and my intro.

 

Would have started a thread but I haven't paid my fiver!

 

Thanks in advance.

 

11/11/08 saw the the most famous ship in the world leave her home port of Southampton for the very last time. She set sail for Dubai where she will be converted into a luxury hotel and conference centre.

 

Part of this conversion involves removing her iconic red funnel and replacing it with a 4 storey glass Penthouse.

 

Firstly I think this is extremely tacky to say the least and will destroy the look of a ship that is famous for it's un-parallelled class, style and majesty. The last of the true 'Ocean Liners' as opposed to the modern day 'Cruise Ships'.

 

Secondly they will then scrap the funnel.

 

Ever since I can remember as a small child I have looked out of my bedroom window at my mums house, and in later years from various points all over Southampton, and seen QE2's iconic red funnel towering above Dock Head.

 

This is now a sight that none of us will ever see again.

 

Watching QE2 sail out of Southampton for the last time was an emotional day for alot of people (myself included) and you could literally 'feel' this emotion from people standing on Weston Shore watching her leave.

 

To then find out what QE2's new owners plan to do with her funnel was just shocking.

 

We cannot let this piece of Southampton's heritage and history just be ripped off and discarded of like an oiley rag.

 

I think we should start a petition to have her funnel returned to Southampton to be set-up as a memorial so the people of her home town port, the people that loved her so much, will always have a piece of her to go and visit.

 

It is unlikely that many of us will be able to visit her in Dubai, and even if we did she would no longer be (or even look like!) the same ship that sailed the world for 40 years with Southampton proudly emblazoned across her stern.

 

Who's with me??

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45315848407

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