Front cover picture: QE2 enters the Clyde after being named by Her Majesty The Queen, 20 September 1967.

As QUEEN ELIZABETH 2 currently sails through the Red Sea on her final voyage to Dubai, I’d like to continue with the historical menu covers that Cunard’s UK Public Relations Department published which were distributed during her final transatlantic crossing.

QUEEN ELIZABETH 2:

Launching a Queen

At precisely 1428 hours on 20 September 1967, in front of 30,000 Clydesiders at the famous John Brown & Co Shipyard, The Queen stepped forward on  the launching platform and said “I name this ship Queen Elizabeth the Second. May God bless her and all who sail in her.”

She cut the ribbon using the same gold scissors that her mother had used to launch Queen Elizabeth in 1938 and her grandmother to launch Queen Mary in 1934. This released the bottle of wine that smashed onto the side of the newly named liner. She pressed the button that electrically released the launching trigger.

Then nothing happened.

For 70 seconds it seemed as if the ship did not move. The Queen looked amazed; the smile slowly faded from Prince Philip’s  face. Workmen high up on the deck leaned over and shouted “Give us a shove!” Shipyard director George Parker joined in the spirit of the request and, bowler-hatted, he sprang to the bows and pushed. He jubilantly waved his bowler when, by a coincidence, she began to move. A little over two minutes after the Queen had named her, the new Elizabeth had slid smoothly into the Clyde. Newspapers the next day claimed the Queen had wept as the new ship entered the Clyde, and that Prince Philip took a white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. The Queen exclaimed “Oh, look at her, she’s beautiful.”

It was planned that the liner would glide towards the river at 35 km/h with the last shore fetters, the massive drag links, running out in a thunderous roar. There were ten bundles of them on each side of the ship. Each weighed 71 tonnes-1,420 tonnes in all to steady the liner’s journey to the rive and so to the sea. The ship was expected to be travelling at 30 km/h as she hit the water, pushing away 20,320 tonnes of water-her own launching weight. A total of 150 men would be aboard the empty shell ready for any emergency. A further 161 men would work ashore to ensure a smooth launch.

The intricate launching calculations had been worked out by a computer- a week’s work using normal methods reduced to 30 minutes. Many factors had to be considered, for the river was narrow and the ship was long.

The man responsible for the slipway was Robert Craig, head foreman shipwright. He had worked at John Brown’s since leaving school in 1918 and this ship would be his 47th launch as head foreman. He built the slipway from the information given to him It’s declivity (downward inclination towards the river) was 1.27 cm for every 30 cm. Every square metre of the sliding and standing (fixed) ways had to bear a weight of more than 20 tonnes.

He used 5,000 metres of 30cm2 timber to build the supporting poppets (cradles) at each end of the ship. Once the ship had rested on 300 keel blocks but these had now been knocked away; the berth had been stripped of the huge bilge blocks and wedges.

The ship rested on two sliding ways, each formed of 25 timbers 9.1 metres long, 1.83 metres wide and 30 cm thick. The sliding and standing ways had been greased with a concoction of 9 tonnes of tallow compound, 320 litres of sperm oil, 0.71 tonnes of soft black soap and 32 litres of fine spindle oil.

The ship was held by six mighty triggers, each with its 20-cm wodden tongue set into the sliding ways. Wires trailed from a tiny electrical device to the button on the high platform where the Queen would perform the launching ceremony. As the Queen pressed the button the powerful trigger arms would snap back in their pits with a report like an artillery salute. Then the ship would glide towards the river; and just in case the liner was reluctant to leave the berth, two hydraulic rams would give her a nudge-a push with the power of 84 kg/cm2 behind it.

Shortly after the ship entered the Clyde for the first time, aircraft from the No. 736 Squadron of the Fleet Air Arm flew over in an anchor formation as an aerial salute as six tugs manoeuvred her inch by inch into the fitting-out basin. The Queen and the royal parth and guests then went to tea in the works canteen. There the Queen was then presented with a small sppedboat for the royal yacht Britannia- built on the same berth as QE2. A delighted Queen thanked Lord Aberconway, then Chairman of the yard, and suggested it may be appropriate to call it John Brown and have it painted in Cunard colours. Prince Phillip retorted: “Why not call it Cunard and paint it brown?”