QE2’s engines were enormous! Find out why!

QE2 was one of the fastest, most powerful passenger ships ever built. QE2 was launched in 1969 and measured over 293m long, and 70,000 gross tons. The QE2's top speed was over 32 knots – which is almost 60 km/h.

With such a big ship moving at such fast speeds, you might wonder what kind of engines QE2 had? Let’s visit QE2’s engine room, to see what made this ship so fast!

➡ Merch: https://chrisframeofficial.teemill.com/
➡ QE2 Facts: https://www.chriscunard.com/qe2/
➡ Podcast: https://www.thebigcruisepodcast.com/

Fact References:

➡ The QE2 Story ISBN: 9780752450940 (2009 / Chris Frame & Rachelle Cross)
➡ QE2 Technical Infirmatioin Sheet (2008 / Cunard)
➡ Rob Lightbody's Website: https://www.roblightbody.com/qe2-1987...
➡ Sam Warwick's QE2: http://www.qe2.org.uk/

Image References:

All images used are Ⓒ Chris Frame and Rachelle Cross unless otherwise noted. Opening image of QE2 is Ⓒ Alex Lucas.

Other image references:

➡ QE2 in Bremerhaven Refit: https://bit.ly/3uqIjy7 CC BY SA 3.0 "Dashers" / Paul Dashwood
➡ QE2 no Funnel: https://bit.ly/3Uz2RPN CC BY SA 3.0 "Dashers" / Paul Dashwood
➡ Steam Turbines: https://bit.ly/3uyVOvH CC BY SA 3.0 "Dashers" / Paul Dashwood
➡ QE2 Propeller: Pamela "Go Cats" McIntosh: https://bit.ly/3F8jI67
➡ Southampton Aerial: https://bit.ly/3iAtSVH "Meznaric" CC BY SA 4.0

Chapters:

00:00 One of the fastest ships ever built
00:44 Steam turbine vs. diesels
01:18 Why Cruise Ships have smaller engines
01:37 Re-engineering an ocean liner
02:14 Engine room layout
02:22 How the engines drive the ship
03:15 World's Largest Propulsion Motors
03:54 How did QE2 slow down?
04:51 Advanced energy re-capture boilers
05:28 Last time the engines were used

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Learn More:

🚢 My Cunard History Website: https://www.chriscunard.com/

📚 Buy my books: https://www.chrisframe.com.au/books

👕 Buy cruise merch: https://chrisframeofficial.Teemill.com/

🎶 Listen to The Big Cruise Podcast: https://www.thebigcruisepodcast.com/

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Tags:

#QE2 #Cunard #cruisenews #cruiseship #oceanliner #maritimehistory #deiselengines #engineroom #ship #cruise #engineroomtour

About this video:

QE2 had two powerplants during her 40-year career. The ship was built in the 1960s with a steam turbine plant. This was replaced in a massive refit during the 1980s with a diesel powerplant.

QE2 was always a fast ship. But the steam turbines that she started her service career with, were unreliable. There just wasn’t enough redundancy.

A new diesel powerplant made QE2 even more powerful than before. In fact, she achieved a maximum speed of 34 knots during her 1987 sea trials, which makes her the fastest modern merchant ship!

QE2’s engine rooms had been designed for big, round, steam turbine engines. The new powerplant contained nine, medium speed MAN B&W diesel electric engines. Each one of these nine-cylinder engines was about the size of a London Double Decker bus.

The new layout had four engines in the forward room and five in the aft. This allowed for an amazing view from above.

In older ships, reciprocating or turbine engines directly drove the propellers. QE2’s diesels didn’t. Instead, they created electricity. Each engine could produce 10.5MW of power. Times that by 9 engines and you get 94.5MW – enough to power Southampton, well in 1987 at least.

Around 9MW went to supply hotel services. This powered all the lights, lifts, kitchens, cabins and so on. When QE2 was docked, just one of the nine engines could supply the 9MW of hotel service power, though in reality they’d keep more than one fired up for redundancy.

Most of QE2’s power was used to drive the ship, using two giant propulsion motors. Built by GEC England, each propulsion motor was about the size of two double decker busses, and weighed 400 tons! They were rated at 44MW, making them the most powerful marine motors ever built at the time. There were two motors – one for each propeller shaft.

QE2’s propeller shafts were 70m long, and each connected to five bladed variable pitch propellers. The propeller shafts ran at 72rpm when entering and exiting ports, and 144rpm the rest of the time, regardless of the speed required.

The variable pitch propeller blades meant that speed was controlled by the angle set on the blades. This meant QE2 could quickly increase and decrease speed. The most interesting part was when they needed to go in reverse. This was achieved not by running the propeller shaft backwards, but by adjusting the propeller pitch, and gave QE2 a stopping distance of 3 minutes, 38 seconds when cruising at over 30 knots!

QE2 also had two bow thrusters, used to help manoeuvre the ship in port. They had their own drive motors, and electricity for these was also provided by the diesels.

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Other:

✅ MAN B&W Engines
✅ MAN Diesel Electric Engine
✅ Cruise ship engine room
✅ Ocean liner engine room