1976 - Unscheduled Repairs (Southampton)

En route to New York on 23 July a flexible coupling ruptured. Oil under pressure was released into the main engine room and subsequently ignited. A severe fire and explosion followed, burning for around 20 minutes. Flames reached about 100 ft, blackening and buckling the funnel casing. A young engineer from Liverpool was seriously burned while tackling the fire.

QE2 limped back to Southampton where the affected boiler had to be replaced. This resulted in the liner being dry-docked and a large access hole cut into the side of the ship to remove the damaged machinery. She returned to service on 3 August. Around 5 transatlantic crossings had to be cancelled and others rescheduled.

Four crew members received awards from the Secretary of State for Industry for putting out the fire.

Wow, I did not know about this, thanks. Well done to those onboard who tackled the blaze.

On resumption of her transatlantic voyages each of the following ten crossings were 7 days as opposed to the pre-incident duration of 5 days. Only the final westbound voyage of the year was undertaken in 5 days.

Why was that? Was she just running in her new boiler or was it a sheduled thing to make the voyages longer??

It will be due to running-in of the new boiler

Thanks