The Queen Elizabeth 2, or QE2 as she is commonly known was the flagship of the Cunard Line for nearly 40 years. QE2 made her maiden voyage in 1969 and was one of the last great Transatlantic liners. At 70,327 tons and 963 feet long with a top speed of 32.5 knots she is also one of the fastest and grandest passenger vessels ever built. QE2 is arguably the most famous liner in the world.

SHIP’S DETAILS Type: Ocean liner Tonnage: 70,327 GT (gross tonnage) Displacement: 48,923 (loaded) Length: 963 ft (293.5 m) Beam: 105 ft (32.0 m) Height: 171 ft (52.1 m) Draft: 32 ft (9.8 m) Decks: 12

HISTORY OF THE SHIP 30 Dec 1964 Contract signed with John Brown Shipyard of Clydebank. 5 Jul 1965 Keel laid. Assigned 'job number 736'. 20 Sep1967 Launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. 19 Nov 1968 QE2 sets sail from the fitting out berth at John Brown's under the command of Captain 'Bil' Warwick. 26 Nov 1968 Start of preliminary trials in the Irish Sea. 22 Apr 1969 Mini maiden voyage to Las Palmas. 2 May 1969 Official maiden voyage to New York. 8 Jan 1971 Rescued passengers from Antilles, which had run aground. May 1972 Ransome demand in mid-Atlantic. 1975 First world cruise.

HISTORY OF THE SHIP May 1982 QE2 requisitioned for Falklands War as a troop tansport. On 12 May 1982 she set sail for St Georgia with 3000 troops aboard. QE2 arrived safely back in Southampton on 11 June 1982. Oct 1986 Work starts in Germany on the conversion from steam to diesel engines. 1987 QE2 wins The Queen's Award for Export Achievement. 7 Aug 1992 Hits uncharted rocks off Vineyard Sound. Dec 1994 Extensive, much publicised refit. 11 Sep 1995 Encountered Hurricane Luis on a Westbound Atlantic crossing and got hit by a 95 foot wave. 2 Jan 1996 QE2 logged 4 millions miles 1996 Following the sale of Trafalgar House to Kvaerner, Cunard Line ownership is transferred to the Norwegian construction company. May 1998 Kvaerner sell Cunard Line to the American owned Carnival Corporation. 4 Oct 2001 Captain R W Warwick performed the wedding ceremony of his daughter Rebecca on-board QE2 in Boston. 29 Aug 2002 QE2 logged 5 millions miles at sea. Apr 2004 QE2 completed a tandem crossing of the Atlantic with the new QM2. 27 Nov 2008 QE2 is officially handed over from Cunard to new owners Nakheel and birthed permanently in Dubai.

EVENT The famous Cunard cruise liner Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) grounded at 21:58 on August 7, 1992 off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard and the state of Rhode Island. Although a 39-foot shoal had been discovered during surveys in 1939, hydrographic standards were not adhered to and the shoal was not investigated properly until after the grounding; it was then discovered that the shoal was actually at a depth of 30 feet. Aware that the ship was drawing in excess of 32 feet of water, the pilot of the QE2 would have avoided this area had the true facts been known.

ACCIDENT AREA

Firstly, we will start with staff of Queen Elizabeth 2 MASTER The master had been command of passenger vessel for 10 years, presumably Cunard ships. He had first joint the QE’ as a junior officer 1968 and advanced through the ranks until he was promoted to relief Master in November 1987. He served as master on two other Cunard cruise liners before being promoted to permanent Master of the QE2 in 1989.

1ST OFFICER The senior officer of the watch (first officer) had been at sea for 18 years ‘including Five years experience as a watchkeeping chief officer in tankers before joining QE2 in May 1991. 2ND OFFICER The second officer of the watch had served 17 years with the Royal Fleet Auxiliary before joining QE2 in April 1991. OTHER Helmsman and quartermaster on duty at the time were on Philippine nationality, Having joined the vessel in April 1992 and October 1991.

OUR INVESTIGATION How could the ship run aground in an area that was 39 feet deep? The QE2 ’s draft was only 32´4". In addition, an extra 1.5 feet of tide over the chart’s water level datum should have provided a water depth of 40.5 feet – an under-keel clearance of over 8 feet. The maths did not add up, so National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) investigators had to unravel the mystery. Most mariners are aware that when a vessel moves through shallow water, it experiences a complex hydrodynamic phenomenon known as squat .The QE2 master and the state pilot were generally aware of the squat phenomenon experienced by vessels in shallow water. Both testified that they thought the squat of the QE2 was 1.5 to 2 feet while leaving Vineyard Sound. However, there seemed to be no sound empirical or theoretical basis for their estimates. The NTSB commissioned a study by the US Navy’s David Taylor Research Center to compute theoretical values forQE2squat, under similar speed and water depth conditions. The study concluded that the QE2 could have experienced up to 8 feet of squat under the conditions of the grounding.

Who was at Fault? Was it the master, the pilot or both for not communicating properly? Was it the mysterious squat phenomenon? Or was NOAA’s inaccurate nautical chart to blame?

The grounding may have been one of the unluckiest events in the history of navigation. If the ship had followed the pilot’s intended track, it probably would have passed safely north of the rocky grounding site. If the QE2 followed its inbound track, as the master presumed it would, the ship would have passed safely south of the grounding site. The master’s apprehension with the track being followed by the pilot and its projected intersection of a down-track shoal prompted him to recommend a course change to the south. If this course change had been executed a minute or two earlier or later, the grounding would probably have never occurred.

Independent of the later court case, the US NTSB examined the accident and made the following conclusions. The grounding would not have occurred if a master/pilot conference had been held, which would have made the master aware of the pilot’s intentions, and if an agreement on an appropriate route to the pilot’s disembarkation point had been reached.

If the master and pilot had discussed and determined the location of a new track-line before the pilot altered course to pass south of Brown’s Ledge, they would have been alerted to the track-line’s proximity to the 39-foot area and probably avoided the shoal.

The speed of 25 knots selected by the master and agreed to by the pilot left inadequate room for a margin of error.

The use of effective bridge resource management techniques by officers in charge of navigation watches increases the safety of navigation.

Adequate squat information was not available to the crew Adequate squat information was not available to the crew. The NTSB findings highlighted the master/pilot miscommunication and the fact that there was never an intention for theQE2to pass over the 39-foot charted depth. Therefore, even though depths of 32 feet were found in the area by modern surveys, the NTSB largely exonerated NOAA’s charting programme.