Countdown to Queen Elizabeth – 221 days

Crossing the equator again tomorrow, Queen Victoria is now heading north towards Malaysia, while her big sister is heading south to New Zealand, arriving in Auckland today. Meanwhile back in Monfalcone, Italy work is progressing well on our new sister, Queen Elizabeth and she has just been moved to another outfitting dock at the Fincantieri shipyard, and we have the latest pictures for you.

Before we get to those pictures it’s time for our regular feature of this week in Cunard’s history, for the week 5 to 11 March:

Newly appointed to Queen Elizabeth is Chief Engineer, Colin Black, and he is already in the shipyard overseeing the technical aspects of new build process, and he was kind enough to send me some new pictures. So here she is with just over seven months to go before she enters service.

You can just see above the Commodore Club, the beginnings of what will be the spectacular Games Deck with the framework already in place for its protective canvas canopy. Many of the balcony doors have already been installed and the large crane to the right of the photo is being used to bring in the remaining staterooms. Moving a little further aft, and now on deck 10, we get a superb view of the stunning vaulted roof of the Garden Lounge.

As readers of this blog will know, it will be a similar space to the Winter Garden on Queen Victoria but with a new dramatic roof. Just behind that is the Grills area, which has come on a lot since we were last there, and then the iconic Cunard red funnel behind that. In the foreground on the left hand side of the photo will be the Pavilion Pool and work is currently taking place on the pool itself under the temporary protective shelter. It was then time to move our new Queen to a new outfitting dock within the yard, and this is a great picture showing her profile.

Doesn’t she look great and when you see her like this, she doesn’t look that far from completion. She has her own distinctive lines but continuing with the traditional livery that distinguishes her as a Cunarder.

Meanwhile inside there is also a lot of work going on around the ship, but at this stage it is mainly welding and installing the thousands of miles of cabling and pipe work. This is a great view of the ship’s navigational bridge ready for the installation of the deck head panels you can see stacked on the right hand side of the photo.

On the deck itself you can see the beginnings of the false floor and you can see the cable trays that will carry the wiring for the navigational equipment. It’s amazing to think that in less than seven months time Captain Wells will be standing on this bridge, with his team, ready to leave the ship yard and head to Southampton.

I’ve been promised some more photos soon, so I’ll post them as they arrive. I’ll be back next week with more news from Queen Victoria’s 2010 World Voyage including pictures from the World Voyage dinner, held in Melbourne a couple of weeks ago. Cheers Alastair