#Transatlantic Voyager

[stairnaheireann]

#OTD in 587 – St Brendan the Navigator, early transatlantic voyager, dies.

In 484 St. Brendan was born in Ciarraighe Luachra near the port of Tralee, in Co Kerry, in the province of Munster, in the South West of Ireland. He was baptised at Tubrid, near Ardfert, by Saint Erc. He spent his first year with his parents, then he went to the home of the local chieftain, Airde mac Fidaigh at Cathair Airde in Listrim, three miles to the East. He returned to his family at the…

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Anne Jane Thornton, a 15-year-old girl, dressed as a cabin boy on a transatlantic voyage to find the man she loved, who had gone to America in 1832. On arrival, she found he had died so she took posts on other ships, calling herself Jim Thornton. On her return crossing to London on The Sarah, a crew member noticed that she was a woman and she was taken to the ship's captain, who kept her on as a crewman.

"Normal Women: 900 Years of Making History" - Philippa Gregory

[britsyankswheels24]

📅 On June 28th, 2001, at the Belvidere Assembly Plant in Illinois, the final Plymouth Neon rolled off the production line, marking the end of an iconic brand.

📉 In Plymouth's final model year, only the Neon remained. The Prowler and Voyager transitioned to Chrysler, with the Voyager gaining high-end LX and base eC trims, and retaining the SE trim. Meanwhile, the Chrysler Sebring sedan replaced the Chrysler Cirrus, and the PT Cruiser was launched as a Chrysler, although it was originally intended to be a Plymouth.

🚗 The last Plymouth, a Neon, represents the end of a significant chapter in American automotive history. A total of 38,657 Neons were built for the model year, with the very last one symbolizing the brand's legacy.

[da-riya]

Me

[thresholdbb]

Janeway can’t help herself and adopts a slight Irish accent the second she steps into Sullivan’s

[nateconnolly]

40,000 years ago, early humans painted hands on the wall of a cave. This morning, my baby cousin began finger painting. All of recorded history happened between these two paintings of human hands. The Nazca Lines and the Mona Lisa. The first TransAtlantic flight and the first voyage to the Moon. Humanity invented the wheel, the telescope, and the nuclear bomb. We eradicated wild poliovirus types 2 and 3. We discovered radio waves, dinosaurs, and the laws of thermodynamics. Freedom Riders crossed the South. Hippies burned their draft cards. Countless genocides, scientific advancements, migrations, and rebellions. More than a hundred billion humans lived and died between these two paintings—one on a sheet of paper, and one on the inside of a cave. At the dawn of time, ancient humans stretched out their hands. And this morning, a child reached back. 

[lets-zofifi-stuff]

Did somebody order the DCA Titanic au?!!

Summary: In the alternative XX century the most luxurious transatlantic made by man begins her maiden voyage. Two automatons and a human meet on its board and fall in love. But this ship is destined to sink.

I'm trying to get out of slump so

Yes I started writing a fic based off the plot of Titanic from 1996 the one with Leonardo dicaprio? The first chapter is here, the second will be god knows when. Hopefully soon! Enjoy!

[funnyoldworld-isnt-it]

Checking for Good Omens S3 news like waiting to hear that a loved one made it safely through a dangerous transatlantic voyage.

[mindblowingscience]

Some butterflies may be able to journey across entire oceans with the help of the wind. A world-first study has now shown that the painted lady butterfly (Vanessa cardui) can cross the world's second-largest ocean, the Atlantic, covering 4,200 kilometers (2,610 miles) in as few as five to eight days. The trip, researchers claim, "is among the longest documented for individual insects, and potentially the first verified transatlantic crossing." The incredible discovery was made after more than a decade of mystery.

Continue Reading.

[whencyclopedia]

Native American Enslavement in Colonial America

Slavery was practiced by the Native Americans before any Europeans arrived in the region. People of one tribe could be taken by another for a variety of reasons but, whatever the reason, it was understood that the enslaved had done something – staked himself in a gamble and lost or allowed himself to be captured – to warrant such treatment.

This model changed with the arrival of the Spanish in the West Indies in 1492 and their colonization of that region, South, and Central America throughout the 16th century. Native Americans were then enslaved simply for being Native Americans. In North America, after the English arrived, Native Americans were at first enslaved as prisoners of war but, eventually, were taken and sold to plantations in the West Indies to clear the land for expansion of English colonies.

This practice continued throughout the colonial era aided and encouraged by Native American tribes themselves up through 1750 and, after the American War of Independence (1775-1783), natives were pushed into the interior as African slavery became more lucrative. Even so, the enslavement of Native Americans continued even after slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment to the Constitution in 1865. Americans got around illegal enslavement of natives by calling it by other names and justified it in the interests of "civilizing the savages". The practice continued up through 1900, dramatically impacting Native American cultures, languages, and development.

Native American Slavery & Columbus

Native American tribes were incredibly diverse, each with their own culture, and far from the cohesive, unified civilization they are often represented as under the umbrella term "Native American" or "American Indian". Each tribe understood itself as inherently superior to others and although they would form alliances for short periods in a common cause, or for longer periods as confederacies, they frequently warred with each other for goods, in the name of tribal honor, and for captives, among other reasons.

Men, women, and children taken captive were then enslaved by the victorious tribe, sometimes for life and other times for a given number of years and, in still other cases, until they were adopted and became members of the tribe. People could also be enslaved as hostages, held to ensure compliance with a treaty, and in some tribes, people were not only enslaved for life but any children born to them were also considered slaves, thereby creating a slave class long before the arrival of Europeans.

This model changed after the arrival of Christopher Columbus (l. 1451-1506) in the West Indies in 1492 and the Portuguese in 1500. Columbus kidnapped natives he brought back to Spain as slaves on his first voyage and sent over 500 back on his second. Between 1493-1496, he implemented the encomienda system, which institutionalized Native American enslavement throughout the Spanish colonies of the New World, and, by the time the French, Dutch, and English began colonizing North America, the Transatlantic Slave Trade was already established.

Continue reading...

[someone-will-remember-us]

More than three centuries after she made a perilous transatlantic voyage to study butterflies, a rare copy of the hand-coloured masterwork by the great naturalist and artist Maria Sibylla Merian is returning to Amsterdam.

The Rijksmuseum, which holds more than half-a-million books on art and history, last week announced it had acquired a rare first-edition copy of Metamorphosis of the Insects of Suriname (Metamorphosis Insectorum Surinamensium), described as a high point of 18th-century book production when the Dutch Republic was “the bookshop of the world”.

More than half-a-metre tall and illustrated with 60 richly coloured plates, Metamorphosis revealed to a wider public the transformation of tropical insects from egg to adult.

Merian and her daughters produced about 200 copies from 1705, but today only an estimated 67 remain, and few with colour illustrations.

“It’s one of the most fascinating books in natural history that we know,” Alex Alsemgeest, curator of library collections at the Rijksmuseum, told the Observer. Also “quite exceptional”, he said, was that Merian took the entire book production process “into her own hands”, from the voyage to Suriname to the commercialisation of the work, which was sold to merchants and scientists across Europe.

With its beautiful, sometimes disturbing images, rendered with pinpoint precision, Metamorphosis is a work of art and scientific scholarship, from a time when there was no rigid division between disciplines. It is also part of the story of Dutch colonialism. Merian recorded the local names of plants and insects she studied. In contrast to other European naturalists, she credited local people with helping her discover the colony’s wildlife, although didn’t name individuals.

Finally, there is the fascinating life of Merian herself. As a 52-year-old divorcee, she embarked on a self-funded voyage to Suriname in 1699, driven by relentless curiosity about the lives of insects.

Born in Frankfurt, Merian learned to paint in her artist stepfather’s workshop, and became fascinated by silkworms, moths and butterflies. She married one of her stepfather’s apprentices and had two daughters. Ensconced in a comfortable life in Nuremberg, she bred and sketched caterpillars, publishing celebrated books about the plants and insects around her.

At this time, many people still believed that insects spontaneously generated in the dirt. While Merian was not the first to show the transformation from egg, through larva and pupa, to adult insect, “her artistic talents helped to bring this message to a wider audience” Alsemgeest said.

Described by the late historian Natalie Zemon Davis as “curious, wilful” and “a harder person to pin down�� than other notable contemporaries, Merian left her husband to join a strict Protestant sect in Friesland, before eventually setting up a business in Amsterdam.

It was in the Dutch city she discovered in cabinets the vivid butterflies of Suriname, a Dutch colony until 1975, on the northern coast of South America. Having moved there with her younger daughter, Dorothea, she criticised Dutch settlers who only cared for sugar, ignoring the fertile potential of the soil for other crops.

While she wrote little about human behaviour, Merian noted the cruelty meted out to enslaved women. In a passage about a plant that induced abortions, she described them telling her that abortions would mean their children could be born free in their own country.

Her book depicted the beauty and savagery of the natural world, as well as some wincingly realistic creepy-crawlies. The first image shows cockroaches crawling over an unripened pineapple, a fruit then celebrated in Europe as a status symbol. In another illustration, a tarantula attacks a hummingbird. Merian is credited with giving the creature its Dutch name, vogelspin, meaning “bird-spider”.

Her image would be dismissed as a fantasy. Alsemgeest said: “In the 18th century, people responded: ‘that’s what you get when you send a woman to tropical places. She probably made that up’”. But scientists later confirmed her findings, he added.

The spider plate, he said, was a very good example of how Merian worked. “She was a really good observer.”

[bantarleton]

My first full-length history book is out today!

The Pattern: The 33rd Regiment and the British Infantry Experience During the American Revolution, 1770 - 1783, follows the 33rd Regiment, arguably one of the best in the British Army, through its campaigns during the American Revolutionary War.  The book aims to give a complete understanding of the 33rd and their experiences, so it’s not just a regimental history. Opening chapters deal with recruitment, training, weapons, clothing and equipment, as well as the home service 1770-75, where the regiment acquired a reputation for excellence. There’s also statistical analysis! I look at where the 33rd’s soldiers came from, what jobs they did before enlisting, their age, their height, and how long they served for. After that there’s a chapter dealing with the events of each year from 1776 to 1783. Not just combat either, though there’s loads of that - diet, disease, discipline and desertion, the role of women, camp life and the experiences of transatlantic voyages are among the topics dealt with. It’s also got;

Over 100,000 words of core text

40 images

Over a dozen BATTLEMAPS

Specially commissioned artwork

Graphs and tables

An appendix!

Purchase links below. This has been a two-year labour of love, so all the support, be it buying a copy or just reblogging this, is much appreciated:

Helion

Barnes & Noble

Waterstones

Amazon US

Amazon UK

[reasoningdaily]

Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Click the title link to Download for FREE from THE BLACK TRUEBRARY

Atlas of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Click the title link to Download for FREE from THE BLACK TRUEBRARY

A extraordinary work, decades in the making: the first atlas to illustrate the entire scope of the transatlantic slave trade   Winner of the Association of American Publishers' 2010 R.R. Hawkins Award and PROSE Award   “A monumental chronicle of this historical tragedy.”—Dwight Garner, New York Times   Between 1501 and 1867, the transatlantic slave trade claimed an estimated 12.5 million Africans and involved almost every country with an Atlantic coastline. In this extraordinary book, two leading historians have created the first comprehensive, up-to-date atlas on this 350-year history of kidnapping and coercion. It features nearly 200 maps, especially created for the volume, that explore every detail of the African slave traffic to the New World. The atlas is based on an online database (www.slavevoyages.org) with records on nearly 35,000 slaving voyages—roughly 80 percent of all such voyages ever made.   Using maps, David Eltis and David Richardson show which nations participated in the slave trade, where the ships involved were outfitted, where the captives boarded ship, and where they were landed in the Americas, as well as the experience of the transatlantic voyage and the geographic dimensions of the eventual abolition of the traffic. Accompanying the maps are illustrations and contemporary literary selections, including poems, letters, and diary entries, intended to enhance readers’ understanding of the human story underlying the trade from its inception to its end.   This groundbreaking work provides the fullest possible picture of the extent and inhumanity of one of the largest forced migrations in history.

Click the title link to Download for FREE from THE BLACK TRUEBRARY

[kaddyssammlung]

Vessel sings: “Flood me like Atlantic”

When you think about the grammar then it would only make sense if he means the ship, the Atlantic and not the ocean. But who cares about grammar in lyrics!

The reason why I'm bringing this up is because I always thought that this could be a possible layer to the lyrics.

About that ship...let me take this from Wikipedia “SS Atlantic was a transatlantic ocean liner of the White Star Line, and second ship of the Oceanic-class. The ship operated between Liverpool, United Kingdom, and New York City, United States. During the ship's 19th voyage, on 1 April 1873, she struck rocks and sank off the coast of Nova Scotia, Canada, killing at least 535 people. It remained the deadliest civilian maritime disaster in the North Atlantic Ocean until the sinking of SS La Bourgogne on 2 July 1898 and the greatest disaster for the White Star Line prior to the sinking of the Titanic in April 1912."

So that ship was called Atlantic and it also sank in the Atlantic Ocean....if it wasn't so tragic I'd be laughing right now but I'm not.

Why even bring that up?! Well...there are humans out there who think that stuff like “past life regression” is important. I don't think so btw. In my opinion there is so much stuff out there what's labeled “spirituality” that only keeps you stuck. You can do whatever you want to, listen to whoever you want to. It's just my opinion. That's all.

So...wait. Right....maybe he did that? I mean maybe something like past life regression and maybe something came up that had something to do with that ship, the Atlantic?!

Idk...just an idea. This feels like it leads nowhere and also a bit like a dead-end.

Just wanted to share that, because it's been stuck in my head for quite some time.

[your-resident-boat-person]

A BOAT PERSON YEEEEEES BOATS BOATS BOATS BOATS BOATS DO YOU HAVE A REASON FOR LOVING THEM? YOU HAVE A LIST OF FAVS AND THEY ARE GREAT ARE THERE ANY YOUD RECOMMEND PEOPLE LEARN ABOUT OR THAT YOU WANT TO INFODUMP ON SPECIFICALLY SORRY FOR THE CAPS I AM VERY VERY EXCITED

Okay, so, if I had to give a reason for liking ocean liners, the answer is probably that I'm a mega-autist. However, it started in the 5th grade. Like everyone else, Titanic was my gateway drug. That eventually expanded into other ocean liners.

If I had to recommend one to learn more about, it would easily be the SS America.

She had a long and storied 55-year-long career. I highly recommend the documentary by Oceanliner Designs on YouTube. However, I will give an abridged version of her story beneath the cut. It's a thrilling story, so if you're interested, don't read this; go watch his video. Its better:

Designed by the famous naval architect William Francis Gibbs, she was launched on August 31st, 1939. The day before World War II began. She was actually part of FDRs new deal program, meant to help the United States recover from the great depression. Her construction employed thousands of people, and nearly every state contributed to her in some way. She was built to a 3 compartment standard, meaning with 3 of her 14 watertight compartments flooded, shed stay afloat. This is actually better than most modern cruise ships, I might add. She was completed on April 16th, 1940, but given all the U-Boats everywhere, she couldn't exactly serve as a transatlantic liner. So the maiden voyage of this ocean liner was actually a Mediterranean cruise. United States Lines actually painted two giant American flags on each side of her hull, with the text “AMERICA UNITED STATES LINES” in big, bold letters, just in case they somehow did encounter a U-Boat.

America was a neutral country at the time, so that kind of thing was important to advertise. Eventually, the US got pulled into the war, and the SS America was requisitioned as a troopship and renamed the USS West Point. I don't know if this is confirmed, but I suspect that it's because if she were lost in the war, announcing that a ship bearing the name of our country had been lost to enemy action would be a huge blow to morale. When her running mate, the SS United States, was constructed, the US government tried to pressure William Francis Gibbs into giving her a different name for this exact reason. It didn't work. I love him. Anyway, here's a picture of her during her service.

The SS America carries the honor of being one of the few ships to never have a single death occur on board during the war. She might have actually been the only one. Anyway, in 1946, she was returned to United States Lines and renamed back to SS America. This time, when they repainted her back to her civilian colors, they ditched the name and flags on the sides of her hull. (Thank god.) Her career with USL was successful, if uneventful. In 1952, the SS United States was introduced. The Big U was about 267 feet longer, twice the size, and twice the speed. Given that the SS United States is still, to this day, the fastest passenger ship of all time, America had a little bit of trouble keeping up. America's passenger numbers fell after this, but she still had many loyal passengers who preferred her. The SS United States’ interior design was a tad lackluster compared to the SS America.

With rising operating costs and competition from air travel, she was deemed an unnecessary part of the USL fleet. In 1964, they put America up for sale. She was bought by Chandrice Line, which serviced the postwar emigrant run from Europe to Australia and New Zealand.

America was renamed Australis and served them until 1977, when, faced with ever-increasing fuel costs, could no longer compete with air travel. She is remembered to this day by many of the emigrants as being a very happy ship, but Chandrice didn't exactly maintain her very well. On one voyage, part of her hull opened up, and a compartment partially flooded. The crew was unable to fix it, and for the rest of the 3 week voyage, she had an awful list over to one side.

Now comes the most shameful part of her career. In 1978, she was bought by Venture Cruise Lines for 5 million dollars. Seeking to capitalize on nostalgia, they offered 5 day cruises to nowhere. To prepare her for this new role, they repainted her in what was definitely her second-ugliest configuration, and they gave her her old name back.

And then they kinda… stopped. They made no effort to modernize her (a ship constructed in the 1930s), and her interiors were, for lack of a better word, a dump. The swimming pool was full of garbage bags, toilets were overflowing, and there were rats and bugs everywhere. It was a nightmare. Truly, a predecessor to the poop cruise from hell. The passengers on her first cruise actually mutinied, and the ship barely made it past the Statue of Liberty before the captain turned her around. The health inspection board was called in, and they examined the ship. They gave her a score of 6.

Out of a possible 100.

Venture went bust, and America was put up for sale again.

Shockingly, the ones who bought her were Chandrice Line again, for 1 million dollars. Meaning they profited 4 million dollars while also getting their ship back in the process. She was renamed AGAIN to Italis, and her forward funnel was so corroded that it had to be cut off, giving her an extremely ugly and unbalanced profile. Even to the lay person, most can tell at this point that she looked very sad.

Her final years with Chandrice were short and uneventful, only lasting 2 years. Chandrice wanted to completely modernize her and have her serve as a modern cruise ship, but this never happened. She then bounced around from owner to owner. First, she was the Noga, intended to become a prison ship. Then she was the Alferdoss, but only the port bow was the Alferdoss, because they only put the name on one side of the hull. So the starboard bow and the stern were still the Noga. She was nearly sold for scrap, but after they scrapped the lifeboats, they defaulted on their payment and pulled out. Then, she was bought by a Thai investment firm, which intended to completely restore her and convert her into a 5-star hotel, much like the Queen Mary had in the 1970s. After a short period of drydocking, it was found that, despite the neglect, her hull was in remarkably good condition. The trip from New Zealand to Phuket, Thailand, was a long and dangerous one. Approximately 100 days. A Ukrainian tug won the contract, and in 1994, they set off…

only to immediately turn around due to the weather. They tried again, and again the weather turned against them. The tow line snapped, and they sent crew aboard to try to reattach it, but it was no use. They were airlifted off by helicopter, and the SS America, now named SS American Star, was set adrift. There was no one aboard, and the ship had no power. Seemingly tired of the years of neglect and mistreatment, the SS America decided to go out on her own terms. She went aground at Playa de Garcey, off the west coast of Fuerteventura in the Canary Islands. Within 48 hours, the pounding waves broke her in two.

She was declared a total loss and promptly abandoned. The waves quickly ate through the stern, causing it to deteriorate very quickly. The bow, however, remained standing, up until about 2008, when it began collapsing into the sea.

It's difficult to imagine that at one point, this was the grand old lady of the seas.

By 2013, nothing of her was left standing above the surface.

Along with her eye-achingly beautiful appearance, she had an extremely long and storied career. So that's why she's my favorite liner of all time. Most liners only last 25 to 35 years. Hell, the SS United States was only in service for 17 years. The SS America had a 55-year-long career. 74 if you count the time she spent wrecked, as she frequently got visitors. She was a truly outstanding ship, and I'm devastated that she couldn't be preserved. If it's any consolation, Phuket was struck by a major typhoon in 2004, so America was probably doomed regardless. If I could pick one liner from history to undo the fate of and magically preserve, it would EASILY be her.

[scotianostra]

On September. 27th 1938, Queen Elizabeth, the world's largest ocean liner was launched on the Clyde.

The Queen Elizabeth was the sister ship of the Queen Mary, which was christened four years earlier, I covered this yesterday.

Unfortunately, her role as a luxury liner was short-lived - with the outbreak of the Second World War the following year, the Queen Elizabeth entered service in February 1940 as a troopship and didn’t return to her original role until October 1946.

The Cunard line’s enormous luxury ocean-goer was built on the river Clyde to sail between Southampton and New York, named after the Queen Consort (later the Queen Mother).

Following the outbreak of World War II, the security of Queen Elizabeth became a major concern for Cunard-White Star and the British Government. It was not safe to keep the ship in Scotland, as it was well known that she was a tempting target for the Luftwaffe.

Queen Elizabeth was painted in military grey before departing Clydebank for what was rumoured to be a short journey to Southampton. However, once in open sea the ship’s course was altered – Queen Elizabeth’s maiden voyage was to New York!

Thus, the untested and untried ship – then the world’s largest ocean liner – made a secret dash across the Atlantic to the safety of America. She arrived unannounced in New York, surprising officials and New Yorkers alike. Queen Elizabeth berthed alongside Queen Mary, Normandie and Mauretania Queen Elizabeth was requisitioned for wartime service on 13 November 1940.

The ship sailed to Singapore where she was refurbished into the world’s largest troop carrier. During the works, defensive armaments and a degaussing coil (to protect against mines) were fitted.

On 11th February, Queen Elizabeth sailed from Singapore bound for Sydney, Australia, arriving ten days later. Here the conversion into troop ship was completed and Queen Elizabeth undertook her first trooping voyage to the Middle East, carrying troops to Suez.

Queen Elizabeth later sailed to Canada, and carried troops to Sydney, while in 1942 the Admiralty considered possible future uses for the Queens. Their trooping capacity meant they were the most valuable large troop transports in service. When the USA entered the war in December 1941, the future use of Queen Elizabeth along with Queen Mary changed. Ultimately, the ships were most valuable operating the trooping service on the North Atlantic, and following a major overhaul Queen Elizabeth commenced this service. She remained in Government requisition for the rest of the war.

At the end of the war, Queen Elizabeth was famous on both sides of the Atlantic. The ship, which had carried over 750,000 troops, now commenced work repatriating those troops as well as the war brides.

Queen Elizabeth was released from Admiralty service in 1946. Her post-war overhaul and refurbishment was carried out both on the Clyde and at Southampton. This overhaul saw luxury passenger interiors installed aboard Queen Elizabeth, in preparation for civilan transatlantic services. Additionally, ship was painted in Cunard livery, while the machinery was overhauled.

Queen Elizabeth was given her full sea trials, and then officially accepted by Cunard. The ship made her maiden peacetime passenger voyage to New York on 16 October 1946.

Queen Elizabeth proved a popular ship and over the coming months the ship was well booked. On 17 April 1947, Queen Elizabeth ran aground near Brambles Bank as she made her approach to Southampton in thick fog. The ship was later successfully refloated.

In September 1951 Queen Elizabeth made her 100th peacetime transatlantic crossing. But as more passengers took to airline services, Cunard realised that they needed to upgrade Queen Elizabeth in order to keep her relevant in a changing world with a particular focus on longer duration cruising

As such, during a refurbishment in January 1952 the ship’s fuel capacity was increased allowing her to sail longer distances without refuelling. Additionally air-conditioning was fitted throughout, to allow the ship to undertake voyages into warm climates. Four years later, Queen Elizabeth was fitted with stabilisers, which greatly improved passenger comfort.

When Pan American World Airways flew the first Boeing 707 service across the Atlantic, the future for Queen Elizabeth was in doubt. By 1962 the decline in the number of passengers on the Atlantic shipping service (they had moved their business to airliners) led to an announcement that the ship would be used more and more for cruises.

Cunard gave Queen Elizabeth another major overhaul in Greenock, which involved an interior refurbishment and the creation of an outdoor swimming pool on Queen Elizabeth’s aft deck. This was combined with a new lido area which, it was hoped, would allow the ship to attract more cruise passengers.

Sadly, the 1966 Seaman’s Strike meant that the refreshed ship was laid up in Southampton for a number of weeks, which further impacted on Cunard’s financial viability. On 8 May 1967, Cunard announced the fates of the two Queens. Queen Mary was withdrawn from service later that year, while the Queen Elizabeth was to be retained until Autumn 1968, by which time it was hoped the QE2 would be ready as her replacement.

Queen Elizabeth was initially sold to a group of Philadelphian businessmen, who intended to turn her into a floating hotel in Florida. The ship made her final transatlantic crossing on 5 November 1968 before she was withdrawn from Cunard service.

Once in Florida, the ship was opened to the public, however this venture didn’t last and the ship was closed in late 1969. In 1970 the ship was auctioned and bought by C.Y.Tung, Hong Kong, who planned to convert the liner into the world’s largest Floating University.

Re-named Seawise University, the ship sailed for Hong Kong to be converted. The transformation was almost complete when a series of fires broke out aboard the ship, causing her to burn out and sink in the harbour, a sad end to a beautiful ship.

You can find more pics and info on the link below, including an 8 minute video. Among the pics you will see that although Queen Elizabeth was a luxury liner, it was not this way when it was in service during WW2, troops were crammed into every available space.