Witness the moment I became a "Shippie" and later became obsessed with ships and ocean liners! Let me take you back 25 years to 1998, this year will always be a special year in my life, its the year I attended my first Bristol Hot Air Balloon Fiesta (video on my channel if interested!) and I gazed upon the beauty of the ocean liners SS Norway (formally SS France built 1961) and QE2 (built 1969) together in Southampton port. Apologies for the annoying questions and whether or not I could sink the QE2 with a stone! A decade after this footage was taken QE2 was retired from the Cunard fleet and our beloved Queen Mary 2 took her place as flagship and ocean liner. Also in my channel whilst out in Qatar with my hot air balloon, I seized the chance to to re-visit QE2 as a luxury floating hotel in Dubai. It was highly emotional to see QE2 again after nearly 25 years. Unfortunately 5 years after this footage was taken SS Norway on the 25th May 2003 SS Norway suffered a catastrophic boiler room explosion whilst docking in Miami and took the lives of 7 engine crew members. She would never return to service and departed Miami and was towed to Europe then laid up in Bremerhaven for a few years as a training ship for future NCL staff. She was sold for scrap in 2005 and finally met her fate at the sands of Alang in India 2006. Final scrapping was completed in 2008, thus ending the life of the last greyhound liner. I never got to experience life on board either of these grand greyhound ocean liners so I hope you will join me in reminiscing their beauty here.
31 июл 2023
