BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout

Subject: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 12:11 AM

For some reason, I like follow the news about superyachts, and recently I learned that the ocean liner Queen Mary II broke her moorings at Cittivechia and tried to attack a smart-aleck superyacht which had been moored nearby and had been turning up its nose at her. Read about it here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jytg_HA_64c

The captain declared that a sudden wind of 60 knots (69 mph)caused the accident, but surely ships encounter winds like that from time to time. Well, she was moored in Italy.

It took three tugboats to round her up, and think what an exciting story the tugboat captains had for the family when they got home for dinner. I must say, it's amazing to think of the power those tugboats must command, because they look so tiny next to the QM II.

No one was injured. What a blessing!

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: DaveRo
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 03:48 AM

Yes, a 60kt gust is commonplace. Either the mooring lines were inadequate, or they failed. The 'windage' - side-pressure - on these floating offive blocks is huge, and the QMII is not that big; those Costa vessels - there's one on the video - are bigger. If it drifted down on a small yacht it could crush it.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Sandra in Sydney
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 04:02 AM

an aside - how the ship got it's name - from wikipedia

The RMS Queen Mary is a retired British ocean liner that sailed primarily on the North Atlantic Ocean from 1936 to 1967 ... Legend has it that Cunard intended to name the ship Victoria, in keeping with company tradition of giving its ships names ending in "ia", but when company representatives asked the King's permission to name the ocean liner after Britain's "greatest Queen", he said his wife, Mary of Teck, would be delighted ...

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 04:29 AM

I remember Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, from my childhood. She died in 1953, when I was six. I’ve always known that the ship ‘Queen Mary’ was named for her.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 04:34 AM

I remember my parents used to refer to Queen Mary (the person, not the ship) as ‘the Old Queen’, the current queen-consort then being Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who became ‘Queen Mother’ upon the accession to the throne of Elizabeth ll.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 05:24 AM

> it's amazing to think of the power those tugboats must command

They're all oomph and no passengers. Self-loading cargo takes up far more than its fair share of a ship's volume.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: keberoxu
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 10:38 AM

The city referred to in the opening post must be . . .
Civitavecchia??

(Referenced in Puccini's opera "Tosca".)

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 12:43 PM

QMII Replaced QE2 Liner that was eventually bought by the Saudis after a rogue wave soaked the carpets and the ship slowly stunk badly.
https://www.roblightbody.com/qe2-1995-freak-wave.html
The ship was supposed to become a museum of Colonialism.

I have a meter long model of QMII. They say this ship is rogue wave proof.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: leeneia
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 02:37 PM

You're right, keb. It was moored at Civitavecchia.

"Either the mooring lines were loose or they failed." Well, what do you call those gizmos that they wrap the lines around? Maybe they were weak or they were in concrete that hadn't set up all the way.

Boy, it was so good that nobody was on the gangplank when the ship tore loose.

I have a tugboat story. A few years ago, I took a river cruise on the St John's River in Florida, and a fellow passenger was a retired tugboat operator. He told how was tugging a boat somewhere when his radar told him there was a huge wave up ahead. He let out a MILE of cable, and there was no trouble. I had no idea a tug could have a mile of cable on it. How much must that weigh?

Donuel, that's interesting about "rogue-wave proof," although we midwesterners believe you should never say anything like that out loud. Don't taunt the weather demons.

My memory said he was on the Hudson River. Could that be?

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 04:42 PM

> Well, what do you call those gizmos that they wrap the lines around?

Bollards.

I shall now go away and wash my mouth out with bilge water.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Anne Lister
Date: 15 Aug 23 - 05:35 PM

FWIW I have twice been a passenger on the QMII on its transatlantic crossings. It may not be as big as some other cruise ships but it's pretty huge all the same, and hardly shifted at all in some heavy swells on the crossings. So if it went walkabout it suggests some human bungling of a pretty fair degree of incompetence, rather than natural causes.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: DaveRo
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 09:33 AM

I watched another YT video that followed on from the one in the OP:
Is Crossing The Atlantic By Ship Expensive? A Queen Mary 2 Review

My wife and I have considered it for a few years - are still considering it. I don't like flying long distances, so if we're going to visit the US again, this is one way of doing it.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Anne Lister
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 12:30 PM

We would thoroughly recommend it! No jetlag (the clock changes by an hour a day, which makes the transition easy). Excellent food and plenty of it. Lots of interesting stuff on board (talks, shows, films, books - as well as fellow travellers). Comfortable accommodation. Really no complaints at all. I even performed in the talent shows, together with a bewildering variety of others. We would do it again any time.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: leeneia
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 02:36 PM

Thanks, Anne. That's good to hear. I have a friend who has take up painting water colors since she crossed and took classes on board.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 03:26 PM

The Original Queen Mary (shipyard serial number 534) was affected by a prolonged strike during her construction that caused lasting problems with internal corrosion because of being exposed to the weather during the strike,

I remember when small being taken to meet Great Uncle Austin, who was retired and living unostentatiously in Carshalton.
Afterward I asked my father "What did he do for a living?"
"He was a ship's captain".
"What ship?"
"The Queen Mary."

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 04:48 PM

The Queen Mary 2 is an ocean liner and was built to do scheduled Atlantic crossings in all seasons. The cruise ships are not built for that.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: gillymor
Date: 16 Aug 23 - 06:12 PM

I didn't know about the QM's corrosion problem but I remember reading in John Malcolm Brinnin's excellent "The Sway of the Grand Saloon" that her sister ship, the Queen Elizabeth, was never quite right because Cunard had to hurry it's fitting out process due to the onset of WWII. Very cool to have an ancestor that was a master of the Queen Mary.

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: MaJoC the Filk
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 11:55 AM

Can't watch the video (YouTube doesn't like the taste of my browser). Does anyone know who owned said superyacht?

Subject: RE: BS: the Queen Mary goes walkabout
From: EBarnacle
Date: 25 Aug 23 - 02:14 PM

As mentioned earlier, a bit of wind or wave can easily do you.
Once when I came home to my schooner [40 LOD] I was greeted with several versions of "Have you seen your boat yet?" Naturally, this made me worry.
As I came down the dock, the first thing I saw was that she was still afloat. When I came up to her, I saw that about 1/4 of the port deck was folded neatly back. A microburst had come through and rolled her against the dock, ripping the deck up. The docklines held, though. We were in protected water and even though she took some water, no other damage was done.
There is really no such thing as protected water. Mother Nature is a bitch.