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Lunchtime Photo

I have good news and bad news for local readers. The good news is that the Queen Mary reopens today after a two-year shutdown. And the city of Long Beach is conducting free one-hour tours!

The bad news is that the tours are already all filled up. Easy come, easy go.

Anyway, it turns out the Queen Mary is only reopening because it's cheaper to make the repairs needed to keep it from capsizing than it is to spend $190 million to scuttle it. That seems like a lot, doesn't it? Towing it out to sea and blowing it up can't cost all that much, so I suppose there must be a ton of prep work or something.

May 8, 2021 — Long Beach, California

17 thoughts on “Lunchtime Photo

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  1. rick_jones

    Towing it out to sea and blowing it up can't cost all that much, so I suppose there must be a ton of prep work or something.

    Empty and clean all fuel tanks and piping, remove any asbestos, etc etc etc … file an environmental impact report etc etc …

    1. cmayo

      Yeah, you have to do a TON of stuff to make it ready/safe for sinking on purpose. I'm not surprised that it's cheaper to repair given the apparent state of the ship from photos, but I am kind of surprised at the number being so low. $190M for a ship that size seems cheap.

      This ship has a ton of history though, so glad they're repairing it. Looks like the sub next door could use some of that love, too. Unless they're trying to make a point because it's a Soviet sub.

  2. DFPaul

    Hey, James Fallows on his substack says leaded fuel is finally being phased out for small planes. Had no idea small planes use leaded fuel. Wonder if crime rates are higher near small plane airports?

    1. kaleberg

      There isn't enough civil aviation flying to make a difference. Small planes that take avgas are much more fuel efficient than jets and there are only so many of them.

    2. rick_jones

      Probably not, but the neighbors who came after the airports were established still want to close them anyway. See Reid-Hillview.

  3. Total

    "Towing it out to sea and blowing it up can't cost all that much"

    Tell me you don't know anything about ship-breaking without telling me.

  4. Salamander

    Wow! Look at the size of that thing! It's probably less than five storeys tall! Compare it with today's cruise ships, which seem to be 20+ storey appartment blocks on the float. I could almost see booking a cruise on a Queen Mary-sized vessel.

    But not really.

    1. rick_jones

      Ocean Liner vs Cruise Ship. Where the latter looks like a human container vessel and the former actually looks like a ship.

  5. mistermeyer

    A bunch of years ago, when the Spruce Goose was still in town and there were alternatives to the Mac and the PC, I attended an Amiga convention on the Queen Mary. Fun! My cabin was tiny, but W.C. Fields prowled the decks and the Sunday buffet was amazing! Turns out Mark and Brian had been in town just before, and had changed the "Hotel Queen Mary" sign to read "Hot Queen Mary." It was, by the way, the only time I slept on a ship and didn't get seasick. (It was also the only time I slept on a ship.)

    1. drfood4

      In the 1980's my family stayed a few nights on the (docked) Queen Mary, and yes, it included a tour of the Spruce Goose. I remember a lot of really beautiful marquetry (art with inlaid wood) all over the place. It would be tragic to blow up the ship without removing all that woodwork!

    1. J. Frank Parnell

      Had to laugh when I saw the sub. It looks like the old Russian sub I toured 20 odd years ago in Vancouver, BC. Then a few years later I looked up from working in my yard near Puget Sound and their it was goinbg by, being towed by a tug to a shipyard. It had some work done and then went somewhere else (LA by the looks of it).

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