QE2 Adaptations for permanent berthing

[Rob Lightbody]

CONSTANTLY UPDATED LIST AS WE FIND OUT MORE

• A "platform" permanently secured to her midships lobby double-shell door entrance.
• A row of connectors for pipes and ducts created on 6-deck starboard.
• Propellers Removed
• All underwater openings sealed, including stabilisers, bow thrusters and sea chests.
• SOUTHAMPTON lettering removed from the stern
• All lifeboat davits removed, and the railings straightened to make the boat deck wider.
• Aft one-deck swimming pool removed
• The crane on the bow has been moved from port to starboard.
• Anchors welded in place, and chains removed.
• Hole cut out of what was once the observation bar

From this post on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/dubaisourcellc/posts/1632919150097411 - we can observe a number of openings being made on deck 6, presumably for all the services she requires from shore.  On SS Rotterdam, they managed to make these hidden - all of them - so the ship appears ready to sail. 

[David Harvey]

Interesting how the pipework has been connected. 

I live in Dubai and went down for a look last week.  They are building a massive chiller farm assumably connected to 2 of those pipes to supply the chilled water for the AC.  I'm guessing her seawater chillers are pretty old now and not as efficient.  The other two pipes are probably for potable water.
As a previous mechanical/electrical engineer, I have a great interest in all this.  Do you know if her original chillers were electrically powered from the diesel engines? I guess they all stopped when the engines were shut down.  I understood she had shore power while in layup but doubt that would be big enough to power that sort of load.
She was probably never configured for any kind of shore power - I assume it was all 50Hz/AC but the engines probably made higher voltage such as 11KV? Wondering how they connected this all up to shore. 
Now I'm captaining aeroplanes, I always have a love for the sea and cruising.  She really is a beautiful ship.

[dellboy]

Do you think that Princess ships (cold ironing) could have a possible answer, this could be of interest even if it's not the method used for QE2.  https://princesscruises.wordpress.com/tag/cold-ironing/

scroll down to Princess ships......13MW at 11KV
   www.aapa-ports.org/files/SeminarPresentations/05_Cruise_Maddison_Bob.pdf

[Twynkle]

Interesting how the pipework has been connected. 

I live in Dubai and went down for a look last week.  They are building a massive chiller farm assumably connected to 2 of those pipes to supply the chilled water for the AC.  I'm guessing her seawater chillers are pretty old now and not as efficient.  The other two pipes are probably for potable water.
As a previous mechanical/electrical engineer, I have a great interest in all this.  Do you know if her original chillers were electrically powered from the diesel engines? I guess they all stopped when the engines were shut down.  I understood she had shore power while in layup but doubt that would be big enough to power that sort of load.
She was probably never configured for any kind of shore power - I assume it was all 50Hz/AC but the engines probably made higher voltage such as 11KV? Wondering how they connected this all up to shore. 
Now I'm captaining aeroplanes, I always have a love for the sea and cruising.  She really is a beautiful ship.

Hi David
- and a very warm welcome 'onboard'!
It's great that you have joined us - specially with knowledge about AC and other things related to heavy metal!!

There may well be others here who can answer your question regarding her power, and access to it shoreside.
In the meantime, have you had a chance to scroll down this webpage on this website?
Re QE2 Dry Docking March 2018
https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,8301.160.html
Page 5 - and Post 182 - beneath the photo, there's an answer from Rod (something about chillers!), he was an engineer a while ago on QE2, and it could also be of interest too!

btw - Expect you looked out for QE2 from above very many times -
And, the President / CEO of Emirates Airlines said he'd remembered to request the 380 to greet her on her arrival in 2008 - just in the nick of time! 
All the best,
Rosie

[June Ingram]

Welcome, David, to The QE2 Story Forum, the place to be for all things QE2.  I very much look forward to hearing more of your observations !   

[David Harvey]

Thanks all for the kind welcome.

I was on a Princess ship in Alaska where we used shore power and shut down all the DG's.  Quite impressive but required some major modifications to the ship and the shore to support such a massive load and voltage.  There is some sort of facility on QE2 but I doubt it was for that kind of load, hence there must have been some modifications done. 

Rosie, I would agree those white things look more like air receivers/vessels than chillers. 
I've looked out at her many times over the years, especially as we turn left to head over the city.  Always felt sad to see her so abandoned.  Can't wait to book my first night stay on her soon!

[Brandon Sterkel]

Hi David and welcome to the Forum! It is always nice to have someone on here who keeps a close watch on our wonderful ship in Dubai! Looking forward to hearing more!

[David Harvey]

I've been chatting back and forth with a drydocks worker who seems fairly sure the engine rooms were dismantled while she was in dry dock.  I'm really hoping its perhaps a bit of confusion and that they didn't actually destroy the engines themselves.  He has sent me some video/pictures of a LOT of scrap metal coming out into skips.  I can't make out any engines themselves though.  I had really hoped there would be some sort of behind the scenes tour possible when the ship opens.  Perhaps being a bit optimistic. 

[Thomas Hypher]

I've been chatting back and forth with a drydocks worker who seems fairly sure the engine rooms were dismantled while she was in dry dock.  I'm really hoping its perhaps a bit of confusion and that they didn't actually destroy the engines themselves.  He has sent me some video/pictures of a LOT of scrap metal coming out into skips.  I can't make out any engines themselves though.  I had really hoped there would be some sort of behind the scenes tour possible when the ship opens.  Perhaps being a bit optimistic.

Hi David,

Welcome to the forum! Good to have another pair of eyes in Dubai 

Holes would've needed to have been cut in the hull, or the funnel removed for access for the removal of the larger components in the engine rooms (parts of each diesel such as the foundations or large parts of the electric motors) and this didn't happen. However smaller items of machinery such as auxiliary systems were removed from former engineers looking at the recent drydock photos. I think this is confusion on the worker's part. Also her trim in the water would change noticebly and it hasn't (the engine rooms being aft of midships and she still trims with her bow high, although she sits higher in the water overall through the removal of the davits, lifeboats/tenders etc etc). Ballasting her if they had removed the engines would not neccessarily mask this (as it didn't with Queen Mary in Long Beach), also her paint lines (such as the boot topping) don't appear to have changed when comparing photos. Finally, Dubai would be unwise to remove the larger engine room components due to their weight (that the ship is designed to have) and consequential changes in stresses on the hull - one of Queen Mary's problems (leading to her hogging over the decades for example). Queen Mary was the example of what not to do in this regard and this hasn't been repeated with other ships converted to static hotels such as SS Rotterdam.

[Rob Lightbody]

We have a topic somewhere about the limited facilities QE2 had for using shore power