The Queen Mary 2 in San Francisco

Posted 8 February 2007

If you think of this as a computing blog, which it mostly is, this will seem like a wildly off-topic post. But those of you who know me know that I’m, well, obsessed with boats. Last Sunday’s arrival of the Queen Mary 2 in San Francisco was the mostly hyped maritime event I can recall in San Francisco. I’ve never seen so many boats on the bay on a winter day, and never have I see scores of boats outside the Golden Gate. It was quite a day—as much for the spectator scene as for seeing the QM2 herself.

In case you managed not to read about this anywhere else, the QM2 is the largest passenger ship in the world. (The Freedom of the Seas has greater displacement but the QM2 still beats her in length, beam, and draft.) She’s also the largest ship ever to have entered San Francisco Bay. They had to dredge a channel to Pier 27 just for her; the usual cruise ship berth wasn’t big enough. She’s not a cruise ship — she’s an ocean liner. That is, she’s built for long passages, not for harbor-hopping.

(Historical note: the idea of a cruise ship that travels among nearby ports arose after cross-Atlantic airline travel obliterated the ocean liner industry after World War II.)

The propulsion system on this beast is interesting. There’s four engine pods that hang below the ship, each with a big electric motor and a huge propeller. The rear two can be swiveled, so the ship has no rudder. Electricity comes from a plant that combines four diesel engines with two gas turbines (which are used when the load is high).