Since we’re going on a cruise next week, yesterday we decided to drive down to Long Beach to find out exactly where we’re supposed to go to board the ship. It turns out that it’s right next door to the QEI, which has been berthed in Long Beach for about 30 years. We had lunch on the QEI, and I was struck by the fact that there is no movement of the vessel whatsoever. Of course, the last time I was aboard an operational vessel, I also experienced no movement until we had reached the open sea.
Still, as far as I could see, there is nothing securing the QMI to the wharf, as you would expect to see with a floating ship. What’s the straight dope? Does the ship float, or has she been somehow permanently affixed in place?
IIRC, there’s a cut-away section of hull around a propeller shaft in order to make said prop visible. So, in that state, she’s not terribly seaworthy. Also recall one or more of her engines were removed. The engine may have been salvaged and used in another ship, or simply scrapped, but the resulting emptiness is impressive.
Her website describes that she was made fully dependent on shore utilities in 1967 when she was removed from British registry and turned over to the city of Long Beach after making 1,001 crossings of the Atlantic. I suspect she’s been at a minimum, braced in position.
Of course, I should have remembered that one of the props stood for many years in front of the old California Museum of Science and Industry, so naturally the ship couldn’t be sailed.
I’ve always wondered about this too. I took the tour a few months ago, and I was going to make a point to ask, but I forgot. :smack: Here’s something very interesting about how the ship was prepared for dry dock, but it doesn’t really answer your question.
True, but my Og, what a sight. You peer down (thru very thick plexiglas) into the subaqueous gloom, and there, scum-encrusted and unimaginably huge, is this.
They used to have a life-size diver dummy on the hub to put it all in perspective, but since he’s apparently no longer there, consider that the prop is 18 feet across and weighs 35 tons. And I think she ran four of these monsters.
[semijack]A coworker of mine told about the ship propellor that his manual arts class in high school was given to cut up so they could melt down the metal and practice casting neat things.
The thing was about 4’ and diameter and was made of naval bronze. It conducted heat away so fast that they didn’t have a cutting torch that could touch it. So it just sat there and as far as he knows, still does.[/semijack]
Have fun on your cruise, [c]Cyn** and I went on one a few months back and had a great time.
One of the things I found so wild is that despire the immense size of the QE1 you will find yourself on one of the aft decks of you cruise ship looking down at it.
most likely the shafts will have seized by now. Like most complex machinery, ships don’t like being unused. It can be done, like the Iowas were reactivated in the 1980s from the Mothball Fleet, but they weren’t just left to swing round the buoy, a good deal of preparation and some routine mantainance went into them. Many items in the machinery are obsolete and would be impossible to have repaired; it would be easier to replace them with modern equivalents.
