Thunder Down Under: RMS Queen Mary 2 ocean liner in Fremantle

By Vic Midyett

The arrival of the ocean liner RMS¹ Queen Mary 2 in Fremantle with the high tide on Monday caught me by surprise – I wasn’t expecting it here again so soon, after being here only last year. And it didn’t stay long, only about twelve hours, leaving with the high tide that night. While it was here, it refueled, and a line of taxis and buses of all sizes picked people up to show them around. Shirley talked to some folks from England who just walked around Fremantle.
    I was not legally able to get very close, but thanks to photo-cropping technology, it appears from the photo above that I got closer than I did. The sail boat parked in front of the QM2 is a private yacht² with three sail masts, although it looks like only one in the photo. Here is another picture, showing all three of the yacht’s masts (with booms on the other side of the river visible in the background):

    I couldn’t get close enough to see any more of the yacht, but from what I could see and estimate using my distance away, I am guessing it is 180-200 ft long, and can sleep 30 people easily.

    Immediately to the left of the QM2 in this photo is a refueling boat. I imagine it was the best sale the boat’s owner has made this year. At the dock opposite, on the other side of the river, is a container ship.
    Here is a photo of the QM2 pretty much full on:

    I parked on the side of the road in an empty taxi rank to take the next shot. My intention was to show how much taller the QM2 is than the adjacent buildings. On the raised part, just past the car park in the foreground, is the train rail line that goes to Perth. The top of the three-story passenger terminal is visible just before the ship. Incredibly perhaps, from the train line to the ship is a good 1/4 to 1/3 of a mile.

It dawned on me much later that the evening sun would be conducive to a better picture of the ship and yacht, so we drove back down to the docks and got two more photos.
    This time, to my surprise, I was allowed – or at least no one stopped me from it – to get closer to the ship and into the terminal’s parking lot. I took the second photo to show better how much taller the QM2 is than the three-story terminal in front of it:

Getting the idea?  [photo from Travel+Leisure]

But my photos don’t really tell you what kind of ship we’re talking about here. The ​QM2 is in the Cunard fleet, which comprises three exceptional ships – the Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Victoria, and their flagship RMS Queen Mary 2, which is 1,132 ft long and can cruise at just over 30 knots (about 56 miles/hr). It has 17 decks and a passenger capacity of 2,695, with a crew of 1,253 – almost one crew person per two passengers. A larger ship is under construction, not yet named, due for launch in 2022.

The movie theater

A lounge & bar (I could not discover how many the QM2 has)

The Britannia Restaurant, whose meals are included in the cost of passage
(five other restaurants offer alternative cuisines
for which passengers may have to pay extra)

    For more photos and information, see, for example, Travel+Leisure’s July 26, 2016 article, “Queen Mary 2 Gets a Makeover.”
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1. RMS stands for Royal Mail Ship, which, as Wikipedia explains, is

a designation which dates back to 1840. It is the ship prefix used for seagoing vessels that carry mail under contract to the British Royal Mail.

Note that the Titanic, which went down in the Northern Atlantic the year it was commissioned (1912), was a Royal Mail Ship.
    As for RMS Queen Mary 2 herself, Wikipedia informs us that

…the QM2 is a transatlantic ocean liner…the largest and only major ocean liner built for the British Cunard Line since Queen Elizabeth 2 in 1969, the vessel she succeeded as flagship of the Cunard Line.
    The new ship was named Queen Mary 2 by Queen Elizabeth II in 2004 after the first 1936 namesake ship RMS Queen Mary…With the retirement of Queen Elizabeth 2 in 2008, Queen Mary 2 is the only transatlantic ocean liner in line service between Southampton, England, and New York City, New York, operating for a part of each year. The ship is also used for cruising, including an annual world cruise.

2. I knew I would eventually find out more about the yacht that was docked in front of ​the Q​ueen Mary 2. After asking several dock workers and getting tidbits of “I think” information, I finally found out its name: EOS. One dock worker told me it is currently owned by a Frenchman and guests on it are by invitation​ only​. It is not ​available ​for charter.
    It sleeps 16 guests and 21 crew. It was built in Germany and is 304.89 feet long. Both the boat’s capacity and its size are more than I guessed. I also heard that its masts are the tallest of any yacht in the world, but I’ve not been able to confirm that. Here is one website I found for it. ​Just beautiful!​

Copyright © 2018 by Vic Midyett