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Time and commerce have done for the Queen Elizabeth 2, the last survivor of the era when luxury passenger liners looked like ships and not like floating apartment blocks.
The ship, which has carried more than 2.5 million passengers since it was launched by the Queen on the Clyde in 1967 – making it the longest-serving in the history of the Cunard Line – has been sold to Dubai for £50 million (BD37.38 million).
It will be moored off the Middle East coast as a hotel, shops and a museum of its own glamourous history.
The QE2 has been a record breaker both for speed and endurance, but after 40 years and 8.8 million km, keeping it at sea for much longer would have started to cost serious money.
Historic ships experts thought Cunard had got a remarkably good price, given that much more money will now have to be spent after the new owners promised to restore the original glamourous interiors, which are a hymn to the swinging 60s, decked out in fibreglass, plastic, brightly-coloured leather, and a bar with a scarlet baby grand piano.
Cunard is selling to Istithmar, the investment arm of Dubai World, owned by the government of Dubai.
In 2009, the QE2 will become a floating “hotel, retail and entertainment destination” at the Palm Jumeirah, the enormous palm-shaped artificial island being developed as a complex of tourist hotels and apartments, also by Dubai World.
Its chairman, Sultan Ahmed bin Sulayem, said: “She is coming to a home where she will be cherished.”
Carol Marlow, president of Cunard, said: “We are delighted that when her legendary career as an ocean liner ends, there will continue be a permanent home for her that will enable future generations to continue to experience fully both the ship and her history.”
Over 40 years the QE2’s passengers have included most of the crowned heads of Europe, politicians including Lady Thatcher and Nelson Mandela, astronaut Buzz Aldrin and explorer Sir John Blashford-Snell, stars including Vera Lynn, most of the Beatles individually, Mick Jagger and David Bowie.
The 40th anniversary cruise in September, back to the Clyde where the ship was built – now almost empty of shipping – was already sold out, but tickets will now be snapped up for all its remaining voyages.
“She was a wonderful thing, marvellously ship-like, beautiful sweeping line,” said Martyn Heighton, director of National Historic Ships, the organisation which compiles the register of the national collection of important old ships. “But at 40, she really was getting on a bit. Basically ships only have 30 years in them, whether they’re a modern passenger ship or a timber warship – after that keeping them going gets very, very expensive.”
By Maev Kennedy and Mark Milner
