Word: cunarder
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...Queens of the Cunard Line used to epitomize royalty almost as much as the majesties that they were named for. Launched in 1968, the Queen Elizabeth 2 was never as regal as the old Queen Mary (now a dry-docked tourist attraction in Long Beach, Calif.) or the first Queen Elizabeth (which sank outside Hong Kong harbor last January, the victim of suspected arson). Still, the Q.E. 2 retained, in its original design, at least some of the proud aura of the days when Britannia ruled the waves. But a $4½ million face-lifting, unveiled last week, seems...
Added Lumps. Cunard ordered the changes to increase both passenger revenues and on-board spending, particularly by Americans. Nonetheless, the facelift, which was devised by a Florida kitchen-supply firm, has made Britain's designing establishment a bit seasick. Dennis Lennon, who was chiefly responsible for the original interior design of the ship, quit after two weeks on the new project. "It was a national ship," he explained. "It wasn't something to play around with and turn into a honky-tonk." James Gardner, the principal exterior designer of the original, said of the altered superstructure: "We tried...
...Cunard Line, which expects the alterations to help increase the Q.E.2's profits by 50%, seems prepared to weather the storm. But even the line's chairman, Victor Matthews, looked a little queasy after he toured the liner a few hours before it was due to depart Southampton for New York. "This is a disaster," he said, having peered through half-painted cabins with naked light bulbs hanging from their sockets and cables strewn across the floors. "The ship looks as though a bomb has hit it." The Q.E.2's departure was delayed three days while workmen...
...considerably more difficult to hijack than a 100-ton jet. On the other hand, a 963-ft. ocean liner contains more hiding places for anyone who wants to stow a bomb aboard. Last week the British liner Queen Elizabeth 2 was in mid-ocean when an extortionist telephoned Cunard Lines and demanded a queen's ransom of $350,000. Six bombs were hidden aboard the Queen and ready to detonate, the caller warned. They had been placed there by an ex-convict and a terminal cancer victim who were fatalistically prepared to be blown sky-high along with...
...Cunard was "99½% sure" that the call was a hoax, Chairman Victor Matthews reported later. Nevertheless the company procured the cash in Manhattan and waited for a second call, which never came. Meanwhile, at an R.A.F. base in Wiltshire, England, a four-man bomb-disposal team climbed aboard a long-range Hercules transport and strapped on parachutes. When the plane made its rendezvous with the liner 1,400 miles west of England in the Atlantic, the men plummeted through the clouds and rain to land close beside a waiting launch...