QE2 Handed Over to Cunard

[Michael Gallagher]

On Friday 18 April 1969 QE2 officially became a Cunard ship when she was finally handed over to her owners by a simple exchange of letters reserving all rights or claims on both sides. Unusually the handing over took place in London at a private ceremony because Sir Basil would be “flying out of the country immediately afterwards”. With three triumphant blasts on her whistle the Cunard flag was hauled up by coxswain Andrew McGregor at 1315 hours (shown below) as the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders flag – which had been flown over the liner since her arrival in Southampton on 2 January – was lowered.

Watching the three-minute ceremony on board QE2 was Captain Warwick who had broken his leave to be with John Whitworth (Cunard Managing Director) and John Starks (Technical Director of UCS).

The flag raising was at first scheduled for 12 noon, the time of the official handing over was to be held in London but because of the delay in the London ceremony the Upper Clyde Shipbuilder’s flag remained in place on QE2 for another hour.


That day Cunard made a payment of £2,072,000 and the yard paid Cunard £792,000. At the same time Cunard borrowed from the Board of Trade the remainder of the Government loan (£1.9 million) under the Loan Agreement made in September 1967. This would result in a net inflow of cash to the company of £620,000.

On the same day a list of outstanding items and tests in all areas of the ship were agreed by both Cunard and UCS – it came to 216 pages.