Fun, games and ancient rites on board the greatest ocean liner still in service

With King Neptune’s permission, pollywog Brian Berkman crossed the equator on board the Queen Mary 2 and is now a proud shellback. He gives the lowdown on the variety of pursuits avaliable on this luxurious ship.

- Brian Berkman

The South African economy has benefitted from security concerns in the Middle East as more freight and cruise companies call at Gqeberha, Durban and Cape Town ports while avoiding the Suez Canal.

Many South Africans, this writer among them, were able to take advantage of this forced rerouting and sail on Cunard’s Queen Mary 2 (QM2) from Cape Town to Southampton in the UK in April this year, a total of 6 173,6 nautical miles, at significantly discounted rates.

Cunard’s QM2 is the only ocean liner in service today. She is built to make the Atlantic crossing from Southampton, UK, to New York, USA, in the safest and most comfortable way possible. While many cruise ships have a stabiliser to limit the roll and pitch that typically leads to seasickness, the QM2 has two 5m-long stabilisers that extend from the hull.

Her hull is made up of 94 steel blocks (made from 580 panels), some of which weigh more than 600t, involving some 1 500km of welding. The hull weighs 50 000t (more than a school of 330 blue whales) – not to be confused with her gross tonnage of 150 000 – all of which makes her the most comfortable place to be at sea, and that’s not even considering her luxury accommodations and five-star public spaces.

ROYAL MAIL SHIP

Designed by Stephen Payne OBE and built in France by Chantiers de l’Atlantique, the Royal Mail Ship (RMS) Queen Mary 2 (to use her full name) remains the largest ocean liner ever built, even if newer cruise ships carry more passengers.

When you divide the tonnage by the passenger number, you get the ‘passenger space ratio’, literally the ton per passenger, which is intentionally very high, giving