It was the driving force behind one of the fastest ocean-going liners the world has seen.
Now one of the QE2’s mighty propellers has been installed beside the famous vessel in Dubai's Port Rashid.
Made of copper, it weighs 40 tonnes and has five-blades. A person standing underneath is dwarfed by its 5.8 metre span.
Mounted on a red base with the Queen Elizabeth 2 logo written underneath, the propeller was unveiled quayside at Port Rashid on August 5.
It comes as the former flagship of the Cunard Line will in October formally launch as a floating hotel.
"There was a lot of work involved," a QE2 representative told The National.
"It took six days to remove the propeller, it was then trucked to the port, craned onto the quay, polished and bolted to the dock.
“Having the propeller on the quayside makes it very clear that she is not moving anywhere,” she said.
The old cruise terminal where QE2 is now permanently based has also been turned into a museum documenting the rich history of a liner that is redolent of a glamorous era on the high seas. The installation of the propeller adds to that.
Both propellers were installed in 1988 when the liner was converted from steam power to diesel. They were made by Dutch firm, Lips and the now more-efficient QE2 would serve another 20 years for Cunard before being sold in 2007 to Dubai in a $100m deal.
But the 2008 recession scuppered plans to turn her into a floating hotel off Palm Jumeirah. Years of uncertainty followed but the vessel was quietly restored in Dubai over the past two years. Lifeboats were removed, rooms revamped and the liner was fixed to the dock for its soft launch in April as a floating hotel. The work cost about US$100 million (Dh367.25m) and took at least 2.7 million man hours. Inside many of the classic features remain. Hamza Mustafa, chief executive of PCFC Hotels, QE2's new operators, said the retro look is its chief selling point. "You've walked into a time capsule. This is QE2 during her heyday," he said.
The QE2 Story, a website run voluntarily by enthusiasts of the liner and unconnected to the current operators, has more details.
“The propellers carried QE2 approximately three million nautical miles - much of it at high speeds of around 29 knots. Her original propellers [1967 to 1986] took her 2.6 million miles.”
QE2 was built in the shipyards of John Brown in Clydebank, Scotland and the 293.5 metre vessel had completed more than 800 Atlantic crossings by the time Dubai entered the picture. The ship could reach a top speed of 34 knots following its conversion from steam to diesel – faster than many of today's vessels.
QE2 had three sets of propellers. Along with the set now in Dubai, two were made for her launch in 1967. When the ship underwent the conversion in the late 1980s, one of these sets were turned into golf clubs. Some of these crop up at auction houses to this day.
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Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
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RESULT
Arsenal 1 Chelsea 2
Arsenal: Aubameyang (13')
Chelsea: Jorginho (83'), Abraham (87')
ELIO
Starring: Yonas Kibreab, Zoe Saldana, Brad Garrett
Directors: Madeline Sharafian, Domee Shi, Adrian Molina
Rating: 4/5
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A timeline of the Historical Dictionary of the Arabic Language
- 2018: Formal work begins
- November 2021: First 17 volumes launched
- November 2022: Additional 19 volumes released
- October 2023: Another 31 volumes released
- November 2024: All 127 volumes completed
Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
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- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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