I have to hand it to Cunard’s Media department. Lately, they’ve been getting some spectacular pictures. Usually we find these types of photos on brochures but they’re all photoshopped. Not this time.
In celebration of the Queen Mary 2, 10th birthday [time really goes by fast], the 3 queens, Queen Elizabeth, Queen Victoria and the Queen Mary 2, all met offshore Lisbon, Portugal and sailed together back home to Southampton, England.
The rest of the photos can be found at Cunard’s Facebook Page.
The world’s grandest ocean liner, Queen Mary 2 and her sister ships Queen Elizabeth and Queen Victoria sailed in formation from Lisbon to the UK ahead of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh’s visit to celebrate Queen Mary 2’s 10th anniversary in Southampton on Friday 9 May.
For the first time ever, the three Cunard Queens were photographed side-by-side at sea as part of a shoot that took months of meticulous planning.
Queen Mary 2 is on the final leg of her World Cruise and her sister ships were on hand to escort her home in style.
Photographer James Morgan took to the skies in a helicopter to capture these iconic shots of the three ships sailing abreast of one another.
And while it may look effortless they are the result of a long planning operation in which the safety of the vessels and the thousands of people upon them was paramount.
The centrepiece of the shoot was Queen Mary 2 herself, the only ocean liner in service today and still the fastest passenger ship afloat ten years after she was named by Her Majesty The Queen in 2004. The ship measures 1,132 feet in length – longer than the Shard in London is tall – and stands 236.2 feet in height. She also weighs in at an impressive 150,000 gross tons. Since entering service Queen Mary 2 has sailed 1.5 million nautical miles on over 400 voyages including 213 Transatlantic Crossings. She has called at 182 ports in 60 countries and carried over 1.3 million guests
The 90,900 ton Queen Elizabeth is the newest member of the Cunard family, having been named by Her Majesty The Queen in 2010, and measures 964.5 feet in length.
Rounding off the trio is Queen Victoria, named in 2007 by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall, and (just) the smallest of the Queens at 90,000 gross tons and measuring 964 feet in length.