The Scotsman reports about the plans for a "spectacular and fitting" send-off for the QE2's final voyage in Scottish waters:
The liner will make her last voyage in Scotland on October 7 and large crowds are expected to gather on the coastlines of Edinburgh and Fife. The Firth of Forth send-off will include a fly-over from RAF Leuchars, tugs with a water display and a flotilla of yachts. The events are being organised by Edinburgh and Fife councils, the Forth port authorities, and Cunard. Edinburgh Lord Provost George Grubb said: "The competition we are running will provide a great opportunity for people of all ages to go on board this historic vessel. "We are planning a spectacular and fitting send-off for the QE2 and one which everyone in Edinburgh can come out and enjoy." The liner will berth in the Forth estuary in the morning and leave that evening for Southampton before her final voyage to New York, and then Dubai. There she will be de-commissioned and berthed at a pier at the world's largest man-made island to begin a new life as a luxury floating hotel, retail and entertainment destination. Built at Clydebank and launched by the Queen in 1967, the QE2 has been the flagship of the Cunard line for 40 years.And Dr. James Wilkie, a reader from Vienna wrote yesterday:
I was at the launch of this magnificent vessel, the last of the superliners.
The much larger cruise ships that are being built nowadays have something of the character of pontoons (or in some cases fish boxes) with engines, whereas the QE2 was built to double as an express liner in the transatlantic tradition.
She has the lines of a racing yacht, with hardly a flat plat in her.
I believe that Clydebank put in a bid for her, but the oil sheikhs could not be beaten.
Still, when the oil runs out and Scotland is filthy rich on renewable energy, who knows? - we might get her AND the Queen Mary back again.
In the map, the 10 Night QE2 Farewell to the British Isles.
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