A French shipyard began construction today of the Queen Mary 2, the largest cruise liner of all time and the latest in a legendary dynasty of luxury ships.
The president of British shipping company Cunard, Ms Pamela Conover, today launched the construction of the liner, which will be as tall as a 23-storey building, at the western French port of Saint Nazaire.
Cunard hopes the liner will recapture the golden age of ocean travel when it begins transatlantic crossings in 2004 and Ms Conover said: "We already have thousands of people registered to travel."
The 345-metre Queen Mary 2is the fourth in Cunard's legendary dynasty of Queenliners to sail the ocean, starting in 1936 with the Queen Maryand continuing with the Queen Elizabethand Queen Elizabeth 2.
The project has been almost 12 years in the making after Cunard announced in April 1990 plans to replace the QE2, and comes amid expectations of a boom in the ocean-going travel industry.
Over the next four years, the world's cruise-ship passenger capacity should expand by 40 per cent thanks to the construction of 38 vessels with a total 77,000 beds, according to maritime brokers Barry Rogliano Salles.
The 870-million-euro vessel, which will carry up to 2,620 passengers and include five double-deck luxury flats, will be the first Cunard liner to be constructed outside Britain.
It is scheduled for delivery to the port of Southampton on Britain's southern coast by 2004, 162 years after Cunard first began offering luxury ocean travel aboard the Britannia.
AFP