1999 Refit:
In the months leading up the refit, the condition of QE2’s exterior paintwork left a lot to be desired with the ship looking the worse for wear. One of the major undertakings in the refit was to restore the exterior of the ship to a level of that what was expected. In fact, continuous painting over the years had resulted in the hull wearing some 57 coats of paint (one inch thick).
Restoring the exterior involved grit- and hydro-blasting of the hull taking it back to the steel (last undertaken during the 1986 / 87 re-engining at Lloyd Werft) – an operation that took three weeks to complete. In total, some 91,000 square feet of hull was blasted prior to the application of new self-polishing anti-fouling paint. In addition, the boot-top was coated as was the hull and topsides. In total, International Coatings supplied about 12,000 litres of paint to cover 657,000 square feet.
2001 Refit:
General upgrading work involved the remaining steel topsides from Two deck to Quarter deck (white area of superstructure). The area was slurry-blasted to remove uneven build-up of old coatings and replaced with a high-grade anticorrosive system and long lasting polyurethane finish.
The aluminium superstructure was high pressure washed and repainted
2004 Refit:
• The total underwater hull area and boot top was spot slurry-blasted and recoated with biocide-free antifouling.
• The white steel and aluminium superstructure was slurry-blasted and recoated with biocide free antifouling from the Federal Gray line up to the Boat Deck for the length of the ship.
2006 Refit:
• The front of the ship from Quarter to Sun Deck was completely blasted and repainted.
• The white and federal gray sections of the ship were fully repainted.
