Twelve months ago, time was slowly ticking away for the ocean-going career of the iconic passenger liner (cum cruise ship) Queen Elizabeth 2.
The last Cunarder to be built on the Clyde, the liner undertook a series of cruises before making its final Cunard voyage, a cruise from Southampton, via the Mediterranean to Dubai, last November.
The ship had been sold to Nakheel, the Government-owned property developer, which planned to renovate the ship and convert the liner into a luxury hotel.
QE2 would then occupy a permanent berth alongside the company's man-made, tree-shaped, Palm Jumeirah island off the coast of Dubai.
Since arriving there, the ship has been moored at Dubai's downtown Port Rashid.
A fortnight ago, a report in the Shanghai Daily stated that the cash-strapped Dubai owner of the vessel was considering plans to relocate the vessel to alternative locations in the Middle East or Africa, rather than in the struggling Persian Gulf sheikhdom. Last week, Nakheel revealed that the 70,327gt vessel wuld be on the move again and would be heading south to Cape Town.
The ship would proceed there under its own power, but would not be carrying any passengers.
QE2 is expected to stay there for 18 months and will be berthed at Cape Town's Victoria and Albert waterfront in which Nakheel holds a financial stake.
While there, the ship will be used to provide additional accommodation for the football World Cup being held in South Africa next year.
Container ship activity at Southampton, the liner's former home port, has again suffered an accidental disruption due to the mechanical failure and collapse of another gantry crane boom, the second such accident in 18 months.
The recent incident, a fortnight ago, happened when the crane's boom was being lowered.
It landed across the 9-month-old 76,928gt, 6661TEU NYK Themis, which was loading containers for its return voyage to the Far East.
Sadly, the crane's operator had both legs crushed in the accident and was admitted to hospital in a critical condition.
In the previous incident on January 18, 2008, the boom landed across the deck of Hapag-Lloyd's 2005-built, 93,750gt, 8749TEU Kyoto Express.
There were no injuries but the port's container operations were suspended until all units had been thoroughly checked.
The cranes involved in both cases were built in 1993 by the now defunct British manufacturer Morris.
They had also been raised in height and the outreach of their booms extended to enable them to work larger vessels.
The facility was formerly known as Southampton Container Terminals and operations there since last year have been under the umbrella of DP World Southampton.
This is a subsidiary of the Dubai Government's Dubai World, and is one of a number of container terminals operated worldwide by these interests. MSC Clorinda, the 32,238gt, 2150TEU vessel that made 10 visits to Port Chalmers from July 10, 2006, to October 6, 2008, has been sold for demolition at Alang.
The ship is interesting in being the only Brazilian-built cellular vessel to have called here.
Delivered from the Ishikawajima do Brasil yard at Rio de Janeiro in September, 1981, the ship carried four other names before it joined the Mediterranean Shipping Company fleet in 1993.
