QE2 1 - 3 April 1974 -- three boilers contaminated with oil

[Twynkle]

QE2's early years seem to be a time of interesting events.

Please - Is there any more information regarding 1st April 1974, and the transfer of 1654 passengers at sea, to the Norwegian cruise ship Sea Venture?

And on 5th April 1974, QE2 was taken in tow by Joan Moran & Elizabeth Moran to Hamilton where damage was repaired, it would be interesting to know more about this, too!


Do you know whether there were other times when passengers needed to be transferred, (other than off Martha's Vineyard/ Cuttyhunk Island (1992)?

[Beardy Rich]

I've looked on the www but cannot find any more on this.
Someone, somewhere must know some more on this story.

[Twynkle]

Hi Beardy Rich,

Thank you very much for looking.
Could it have been be absolutely 'anything' that could have caused the machinery to shut down?
I wonder - did this happen in "your day"(!) as well!?
Maybe it happened when she was powered by the MAN engines too?

This, together with other 'events' is from the ocean-liners site:
'By 1974 the cruising business had expanded and the QE2 was operating profitably. On 1 April that year, whilst on a cruise from New York to San Juan, a technical fault caused the propulsion machinery to shut down. The ship was disabled and it was not until 3 April that the Sea Venture, a Flagship Cruises vessel, arrived to assist. The passengers were transferred and tugs were hired to tow the QE2 back to Bermuda. Subsequent repairs meant that the Easter cruise had to be cancelled.'

http://www.ocean-liners.com/ships/qetwo.asp
There'll be more in the Cunard Archive in Liverpool, unfortunately the link that the site refers to is now unavailable.
Cheers,
Rosie

[Beardy Rich]

I found this late last night...

QE2 lost the use of all three boilers after the feed water became contaminated with fuel oil, attempts to rectify the problem were unsuccessful. Without the boilers producing steam, there was no steam to power the turbines.

Thirty-six hours after the problem arose, it was decided to transfer the passengers to another ship.

The Sea Venture was sent out from Bermuda after her own passengers were unceremoniously hustled ashore. She arrived on the scene at 03:00hrs on 4, April and stood off at 1000 yards until daybreak. That was when the actual evacuation began. Using the QE2s lifeboats was not possible as the ships emergency generators could not produce sufficient power to recover them. Because of this, the task fell to four of the Sea Ventures tenders, each with a capacity of 70 persons. Each tender had to make six round trips in an operation which literally took all day long.

[ship pro]

The fault was caused after a fuel oil pump was overhauled.
The fuel pump casing had a steam jacket with a drain connection, right next to that was a pressure connection from the oil side.
both connections had the same thread, anyway the connections were reassembled in the wrong position, consequently the oil entered the condensate system and contaminated the feed water with 30 tonnes of fuel oil which entered the boilers which caused the tubes to overheat and blow!

[Twynkle]

Thanks to you for this, and to Beardy Rich for staying up late!

Sounds as if it was very messy, aggravating, time-consuming, labour intensive and certainly not cheap!
Cleaning the oil out must have been one heck of a task...

I have learned from a friend that QE2's double-bottom was found to be full of thick old oil in 1992.
It sounded as if this had been there for several years.
Purely out of interest, do you think there might have been any connection between the two events?

Later - 'PS' - How and where (on earth!) did you begin, in getting at the oil to get rid of it?
'Specially if the tanks and pipes were sealed?
Cleaning the oven/ drain pipe's bad enough,
Isn't it quite a toxic business?
(btw - there's no need to answer this question, specially if it's 'off limits',
it's just that curiosity is working over-time this evening!)

[CAP]

I understand that the initial repairs commenced whilst she was at anchorage in Bermuda.  The result being QE2 could make the trip to New York although at reduced speed. 

On arrival in New York she spent several days in dry-dock before departing on 16 April for Southampton.  Whilst in dock a number of the boiler tubes were replaced.  Her eastbound crossing was with a compliment of passengers but the voyage was made with only two boilers working. 

In Southampton work was then undertaken to clean and restore boiler number 3.  I'm not sure if this was done in dry-dock or alongside.  This final actvitiy lasted around 3 days

[Rod]

I still have my "Recall to QE2 immediate telegram"

Yes they still did telegrams in those days.

[Twynkle]

She was originally the Sea venture, which came and took the passengers off QE2 when she broke down off Bermuda, with oil in the boiler feed water, April 1st 1974. QE2 was without main power for approx 2 weeks and was towed to Bermuda.

Two weeks - that's a Very long time!!
Hope you'll forgive more naive questions
May I ask what actually happened on board from a technical perspective when she was dead in the water
Was there enough emergency power for steering?
If there'd been a gale (or worse, perhaps  - given the whereabouts of that area) was there any way of keeping her from getting 'caught by the wind' - or wouldn't it have mattered?
Please - Any chance you/ anyone else on board could let us know what it was like during those two weeks...
Thanks so much
Rosie

[ship pro]

QE2 was always short of emergency power 700KW from 2 diesel gen sets on 2 deck aft.
just enough for emergency lighting and essential pumps to get the plant up and running.

The situation was very hot and smelly with fuel oil being scraped and flushed from the feed water system.
 working hours for engineers was 4 hours on 4 hours off very tiring in the heat and you never have a decent sleep.

most people slept on deck and lived on cold food and a few cold beers, however Richard Kenworthy the second engineer did have a stew pot on the go in the workshop

first step was to find the cause which took about 3 days after disconnecting lots of pipes.

then each boiler was manually chemically cleaned and then each tube had to have a wire brush run up and down to get every drop of oil out of each tube.

The feed water system was also chemically cleaned.

The starboard boiler was the first to go back on line, as that had been shut down before the other two boilers started popping. For several months we lived with tubes blowing on all boilers due to over heating, became routine to have a boiler repair squad on board replacing tubes.

The ship just drifted, the ship has to be doing at least 5 knots to get any steerage. so no need for rudder. If there had been a storm we would have had to ride it out.

[StuM]

I was working with the Cruise Staff on Sea Venture during the "rescue". We indeed put essentially all of our passengers ashore into Bermuda hotels to clear space the much larger QE2 crowd. Flagship (SV's owners) quickly made a deal with Cunard the she sailed out to meet QE2. Tenders and LB's from both ships made the transfers, in fair seas. I recall only one or two minor foot/ankle type injuries. The SV returned to Hamilton and discharged the QE2 passengers and regained her own crowd. It was a fairly quick trip.
The QE2 was rounded up by Moran tugs and towed back to Bermuda for temporary repairs and boiler tube/feedwater system cleaning, at anchor. It seems the QE2's contaminated feedwater drain tank system failed to work and stop the overflow of contaminating fuel into the system. Seems similar to her problems during her initial work-up out of the Clyde. I've only seen this type of problem occur one other time; on a U.S. tanker....same result and same "rescue" by tugs.
StuM

[digriffin]

My brother Keith Darvill was one of the waiting staff, later Captains Tiger.  He recalled being offered extra money to stay on board and bail out the ship using buckets.  He said it was the hardest work he's ever done and it was sweltering.

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

Hello Di, and welcome in the Forum!

This must have been a dramatic event for your brother, and his account must have impressed you greatly. I cannot imagine what it would have been like, bailing out QE2 with buckets... seems extraordinary!

[Alan Snelson]

Hello Di and a warm welcome to the forum. My mothers maiden name was Griffin and she hailed from Leamington Spa.

Thanks for your story about your brother bailing out the QE2, I hope he had a big bucket. It certainly sounds like hard work. Do you know how long he stayed working on board, and does he have any more stories to tell?

Look forward to hearing more from you.

[Adam Hodson]

Interesting story about the boilers being contaminated. Great information about how they went about solving the problem too. Thanks for posting! 

[Rob Lightbody]

AP News Video about the 1974 oil contamination of QE2's boilers, and the rescue by the Sea Venture

[June Ingram]

Again, Rob, these videos are absolutely fascinating !  Thank you very much for posting them !

[Boris]

Attached - A very much damaged copy of the Announcement made to the crew 03 APR 1974.

[kevinh]

Didn't get 40 seconds yesterday. In fact, I wasn't even close to my personal best. I ran 43.38, second to last (last, one of my teammates, got 43.39; it was THAT close). Problem was that, first of all, I was wearing spikes for the first time, and so since I'm still not used to them, I was slipping on the turns. Second, the weather has been interfering with how often me and the team get to practice. So, can't blame myself, right?

This seriously reminds me of the big accident QE2 had with her steam engines back in the 70s. You know, when her steam turbines went bad, she started puffing black smoke, and power went completely out causing passengers to disembark on another ship? Basically, that happened to me. At least there's always a next time, and besides, it's the 100m and 200m that I'm ultimately going for in spring. But I'm telling you, one of the things I hate more than anything is when you can't bring your best. And I wonder what that must've been like for QE2. Did such an incident happen again, by the way?

[Thomas Hypher]

Didn't get 40 seconds yesterday. In fact, I wasn't even close to my personal best. I ran 43.38, second to last (last, one of my teammates, got 43.39; it was THAT close). Problem was that, first of all, I was wearing spikes for the first time, and so since I'm still not used to them, I was slipping on the turns. Second, the weather has been interfering with how often me and the team get to practice. So, can't blame myself, right?

This seriously reminds me of the big accident QE2 had with her steam engines back in the 70s. You know, when her steam turbines went bad, she started puffing black smoke, and power went completely out causing passengers to disembark on another ship? Basically, that happened to me. At least there's always a next time, and besides, it's the 100m and 200m that I'm ultimately going for in spring. But I'm telling you, one of the things I hate more than anything is when you can't bring your best. And I wonder what that must've been like for QE2. Did such an incident happen again, by the way?

That occasion (happened in 1974) wasn’t involving the steam turbines directly. The boilers and their feed water tubes (boiler feed water has to be very pure apparently) were contaminated by fuel oil partly due to a failure of an alarm meant to warn of this happening. The whole steam power plant had to then be shut down to prevent more damage. The thick, oily, black smoke was due to the engineers trying to purge (clean out) the boilers and their feed water tubes but the ship was running out of fresh water. One boiler was more affected than the other two and significant re-tubing of the two less affected boilers had to occur even in Bermuda (where she was somewhat nearby and was towed) before permanent repairs were carried out. I do not know of another similar incident happening again.

There are topics on this forum with photos and personal accounts from crew at the time, who are also members of the forum and therefore might be able to provide more information here in this topic as they have done in the other related topics.

Good luck with your next race!

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

As you can see, I have added this latest correspondence to the topic in which this incident was discussed. Many of your questions will be answered when reading the contributions above .

[Boris]

Some newspaper cuttings on the incident.
04 APR 74 SMH: 'QE2 evacuation ...'
06 APR 74 SMH: 'As idle as a painted ship ...' (photo)

[Rob Lightbody]

Some newspaper cuttings on the incident.
04 APR 74 SMH: 'QE2 evacuation ...'
06 APR 74 SMH: 'As idle as a painted ship ...' (photo)

Thank you Boris - amazing to tie up your newspaper cuttings with this topic, 44 years later.

[Lynda Bradford]

As it was 45 years ago since the incident of 1 to 3 April 1974, I decided to read once more this very interesting topic with first hand accounts of what happened. 

The news videos interviewing passengers was particularly interesting

But what a gem to read the announcement to crew from the staff Captain (posted by Boris) that gives a wonderful insight of how the crew who were left onboard QE2, once the passengers were transferred, coped with difficult conditions.

[Maureen Kragten-Munsch]

Hi,

I have just read through all the posts on this subject and it brought back many memories, let’s face it, we broke down in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle and there were many stories going around amongst the crew.  I remember it being very hot and the transfer of the passengers to the Sea Venture caused quite a bit of upset as belongings other than one bag hag to be left on board.  As a Stewardess I had to deal with a lot of disgruntled passengers.

The crew that were left behind mostly slept on deck as there was no power so consequently no lights.  Food spoilt very quickly in the heat, if you opened a tin of ham it had to be consumed within a couple of hours.

Stewardesses did have a bonus we were allowed to sleep in the passenger cabins with a porthole.

Another bonus for all the crew was the fact that the entertainers were still on board so we had the benefit of music etc.

It was certainly a time to remember......one of many adventures on the QE2 that I will never forget
Maureen (Canada)

[Chris Thompson]

I was looking at an old Giles cartoon book today and found this relevant cartoon

[Rob Lightbody]

Oh thats FANTASTIC!

Its got it all going on - even the bellbottom trousers!  Fantastic.

[Chris Thompson]

Its got it all going on - even the bellbottom trousers!  Fantastic.

The Giles cartoons are great, very well drawn and you have to spot hidden jokes. They are also an interesting historical record as they are topical to the events of the day. I actually have most of the albums published as I've been collecting them for years.

[Lynda Bradford]

48 years ago this incident when the QE2 boilers were contaminated with oil. 

Very interested to read the posts from the start of the topic.  Beardy Rich and Ship Pro added information to help us understand what happened

Also good to read crew memories from StuM who posted his memories and and  Maureen Kragten-Munsch

But the post from Boris with the letter  from Staff Captain Ridley is a treasured piece of memorabilia that outlines the conditions for crew when passengers had left the ship. 

[Maureen Kragten-Munsch]

I was on board working as a Stewardess at this time, it was quite a fiasco with the passengers that were transferred to the Sea Venture, they obviously could NOT take all their possessions with them only hand luggage everything else had to be left behind.
Conditions on the ship were extremely hot, as a Stewardess I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of a cabin with a porthole to sleep the majority of the crew slept on deck.  Food was a problem if a tin of ham was opened it had to be consumed immediately as no refrigeration was available.
As crew we actually had some good times as we waited for the Ocean going tugs to arrive from New York as the Entertainment Staff gave shows for us.
When we arrived in Bermuda 🇧🇲 the majority of the crew flew back to England, I decided to visit friends in Canada and that’s when I made the decision to emigrate.

[Lynda Bradford]

I was on board working as a Stewardess at this time, it was quite a fiasco with the passengers that were transferred to the Sea Venture, they obviously could NOT take all their possessions with them only hand luggage everything else had to be left behind.
Conditions on the ship were extremely hot, as a Stewardess I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of a cabin with a porthole to sleep the majority of the crew slept on deck.  Food was a problem if a tin of ham was opened it had to be consumed immediately as no refrigeration was available.
As crew we actually had some good times as we waited for the Ocean going tugs to arrive from New York as the Entertainment Staff gave shows for us.
When we arrived in Bermuda 🇧🇲 the majority of the crew flew back to England, I decided to visit friends in Canada and that’s when I made the decision to emigrate.

Thanks Maureen for adding your memory of the incident from a member of the crew's perspective.  It must have been have been quite an experience.

If it wasn't for this incident, I wonder if you would have still decided to emigrate to Canada.  Maybe I was fate!

[Rob Lightbody]

So great to hear the story from someone who was actually there, thanks Maureen!

[Maureen Kragten-Munsch]

Hello,
I wrote in detail about the experience of staying on board after we had disembarked all the passengers to the Sea Venture, but it must be filed under a different title.  Most crew slept on deck as it was so hot and we had no power, as a stewardess I had the privilege of a cabin with a porthole.  Food was a problem, you open a tin of ham and it had to be eaten that day!   AND don’t forget WE WERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE BEMUDA TRIANGLE!
Maureen Kragten-Munsch

[Isabelle Prondzynski]

Hi,

I have just read through all the posts on this subject and it brought back many memories, let’s face it, we broke down in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle and there were many stories going around amongst the crew.  I remember it being very hot and the transfer of the passengers to the Sea Venture caused quite a bit of upset as belongings other than one bag hag to be left on board.  As a Stewardess I had to deal with a lot of disgruntled passengers.

The crew that were left behind mostly slept on deck as there was no power so consequently no lights.  Food spoilt very quickly in the heat, if you opened a tin of ham it had to be consumed within a couple of hours.

Stewardesses did have a bonus we were allowed to sleep in the passenger cabins with a porthole.

Another bonus for all the crew was the fact that the entertainers were still on board so we had the benefit of music etc.

It was certainly a time to remember......one of many adventures on the QE2 that I will never forget
Maureen (Canada)

Maureen, wonderful to be reminded of your earlier contributions to this exciting topic. Thank you for giving us an insight into how it felt to be on board as a crew member.

I was on board working as a Stewardess at this time, it was quite a fiasco with the passengers that were transferred to the Sea Venture, they obviously could NOT take all their possessions with them only hand luggage everything else had to be left behind.
Conditions on the ship were extremely hot, as a Stewardess I was lucky enough to be able to take advantage of a cabin with a porthole to sleep the majority of the crew slept on deck.  Food was a problem if a tin of ham was opened it had to be consumed immediately as no refrigeration was available.
As crew we actually had some good times as we waited for the Ocean going tugs to arrive from New York as the Entertainment Staff gave shows for us.
When we arrived in Bermuda 🇧🇲 the majority of the crew flew back to England, I decided to visit friends in Canada and that’s when I made the decision to emigrate.

[Rob Lightbody]

From John Chillingworth's LinkedIn Page  Posted with permission -  https://www.linkedin.com/posts/chiefchilly_cruiseships-bermudatriangle-activity-7180431453178974208-5U1r


HOW PUTTING SOMETHING IN THE WRONG HOLE CAN HAVE MAJOR CONSEQUENCES.

50 years ago, today Queen Elizabeth 2 is dead in the water for 3 weeks in the Bermuda Triangle. It's easy for me to remember as it was April fools day.
Extract New York Times

'QE2 lost the use of all three boilers after the feed water became contaminated with fuel oil, attempts to rectify the problem were unsuccessful. Without the boilers producing steam, there was no steam to power the generators or main turbines.
 Thirty-six hours after the problem arose, it was decided to transfer the passengers to another ship. The Sea Venture was sent out from Bermuda after her own passengers were unceremoniously hustled ashore. She arrived on the scene at 03:00hrs on 4, April and stood off at 1000 yards until daybreak. That was when the actual evacuation began.'

The situation arose after a fuel pump had been overhauled. the pumps had a steam jacket to heat oil in cold climates however it was never used and was forgotten about in the operation of the ship.
We started to see oil in the feed observation tank but couldn't figure out where it was coming from, eventually all 3 boilers burnt out through overheating of the tubes with oil contamination on the water side. After 3 days of trying to find out where the oil was coming from, we had opened the condensate system lines and then I saw oil coming out of one of them in the boiler room, as part of the investigation the fuel pump that had been overhauled had just been put on again, trying to recreate what had changed prior to the event. Turns out the mechanic had put the oil pressure gauge line in the condensate hole and the pressure gauge line on the steam jacket hole. Yes the oil pressure gauge wasn't working but they thought it was a faulty gauge. We calculated 30 tonnes of fuel oil got in the boiler water system. It took 3 weeks to clean the system out and partially retube and plug tubes. it was stinking hot and slept on the open deck doing 6 on 6 off for the period.