As the countdown to one of the most eagerly anticipated ships of the century edges closer, we’ll be giving sneak peeks of Queen Anne’s progress… from the person who knows her best.
Join Captain Inger, our first female captain, as she prepares to take the helm of our 249th ship next May.
In this new Captain’s Log series, she’ll shine a light on building milestones, signature installations and everything in between! You can expect regular Queen Anne moments and updates from Fincantieri over the next year, and in this kick-off edition Captain Inger reveals how the project has entered a very important phase…
Captain’s Log
PACKING up in my captain’s quarters on board Queen Elizabeth usually means looking forward to a spell of leave ashore.
Not this time though!
This is because I’ll be joining another ship in what promises to be a true voyage of discovery, a journey unlike any other I have completed in my 25 years with Cunard.
And I am delighted to be able to share this exciting adventure with you all.
I’ll soon have a chance to board my (very) new ship Queen Anne, the latest in our fine line and the 249th ship to sail in Cunard colours. This newest Cunarder is being built at the Fincantieri shipyards in Italy, and I’ll be looking forward to spending lots of time at the Marghera site near Venice over the coming months.
It’s a rather special place to build cruise ships! Arriving at the yard by water taxi from the Grand Canal is an experience in itself.
From there, I’ll be writing my Captain’s Log, giving readers a unique insight as Queen Anne is brought to life.
The sprawling yard at Marghera is a place already steeped in Cunard history.
It was here that my former command Queen Victoria was built and delivered to Cunard in 2007. Fincantieri also built my last ship, Queen Elizabeth (at the Monfalcone shipyard).
From a technical point of view, these sisters in the fleet are very similar. Each has evolved from the same “Vista” class of design pioneered by Fincantieri and our own shipbuilding team of experts. I remember vividly my first voyages on both ships. I was impressed by both the quality of their build as well as their seaworthiness and the very sophisticated kit at my disposal on the bridge.
Queen Anne is a “Pinnacle” class ship with a different hull design to her sisters, although again one from the Fincantieri drawing boards (or computer screens!), with a huge input from the new-build team at our parent company Carnival Corporation & plc.
Modern shipbuilding is an immensely complex process requiring extraordinary expertise in both planning and production. A giant jigsaw doesn’t come close!
Each time I visit a shipyard and see a new vessel being built, I am amazed by the display of skill and technical prowess in so many essential disciplines.
The Queen Anne project has now entered a very important and dramatic phase. Her hull is complete, and all the major plant and machinery is in place, deep inside the cavernous steel compartments assigned to house all the things required to operate a 113,000-tonne ship, designed to take guests on the voyages of their dreams.
The team are in the process of installing her upper accommodation decks and fitting out the bridge – seeing my new office for the first time will be another memorable milestone to share with you.
I’ve spent a good deal of time poring over deck plans and looking at computer-generated visualisations of the public rooms on board my new ship. She already looks magnificent as you can see in these videos.
Walking into the Bright Lights Society lounge, and the Golden Lion pub is already a great experience.
These are bare steel, covered in scaffolding and with a maze of cabling above my hard hat and below my safety boots, but, already, I can imagine how they will look during the coming months as our renowned designers bring their striking and beautiful concepts to life on board Queen Anne.
The first time I saw my new ship was a for a big milestone in her life in September. It was also a milestone for me as I was asked to don welding gear and secure a set of specially minted coins deep inside the ship’s keel. Cunard commissioned a special Queen Anne coin for the occasion, and this was paired in a sealed container with an original coin from the reign of Queen Anne herself.
These will remain in their very special place, far, far beneath the bridge, for a very, very long time as Queen Anne crosses the world’s oceans. When the day dawns for Queen Anne to leave Venice and start her first voyage to Southampton, I have no doubt I will remind myself about those coins.
In the meantime, we’ll be creating all the other very special features which will make Queen Anne such a spectacular addition to the fleet. I’ll keep you posted along the way – and look forward to welcoming you on board my new ship in a little over a year.
Believe me, it will be worth the wait!