He was a rare one in the Tory party, He was the one that Told Thatcher your wrong and she will break the country and send it sliding into debt. And he was right, he knew what british management was like, useless and still are.
@@manos3790 He was a real rare one, he knew why British industry was going bankrupt in the 1930's, it was all down to greed, and that greed went on though out the war years, it was the reason why Labour nationalise industry that went bankrupt, to save jobs and instead of the few having the profits, the profits went towards the country. He hated Thatcher
@@southerneruk Thank you so much for your enlightenment. Thatcher is the reason for the downfall of the UK 's productivity, which I've been well aware of for decades 🙄
I was there as an employee of MAN Company, during commissioning the MAN Diesel engines and the sea-trials. An exciting time! And afterwards I did many trips as a service enginer the following years. Still proud have been a part of it!
I remember watching a documentary on British TV, sometime around the early to mid '90s. As far as I can remember, it stated that Germany had a policy of subsidising both coal-mining and shipbuilding, as both industries were deemed to be vital to the German economy. I distinctly remember one shipyard owner saying he was able to take advantage of closure of British shipyards, by employing British craftsmen who were highly skilled, and who were willing to work for less than German labour.
Sir David Price: "Everything, in the end, gets back to management. I'm of the old generation. There is no such thing as bad men only bad officers." I like this guy XD
British industry was failed by its management. They ripped off workers in the early days which led to the unions. Their incompetence allowed the unions to swing power the opposite way. The gross waste and inefficiency killed the industry.
It's amazing to me that this ship was saved. But if you ever look into America's one fasted Atlantic cruise ship, the SS United States. Sadly left in a dock taken apart then left more or less rotting away. Pretty sad.
Brings back memories, my wife and son and I traveled on the QE II from Southampton to New York in 1970 when she was brand new. I was offered a job as a programmer by a large Chicago company working at their corporate computer center, that is when computers were REAL COMPUTERS, not the wimpy things we have today, just kidding. We felt VERY SPECIAL and our families accompanied us to Southampton to see us off on our adventure, my mother and mother in law were allowed to come on board to see our cabin and to say goodbye. A very emotional experience indeed.
I joined the SS Canberra as an engineer the day she got back from the Falklands, and was on her for the duration of her refit and for another four years. For a lot of the refit I was on the overnight fire watch. I saw the night shift Vosper shipyard workers come on board and into the engine room, fart about for an hour or so, and then settle down to sleep through the night. As I watched them. For the following refits we did, the Vosper workers would strip the engine room down, get into parts, and then find a reason to go on strike. Vosper Thornycroft were asked to give a guarantee that both Canberra and the QE2 would be kept to a 6 week schedule. Of course they couldn’t do that because of the threat of strikes. So both Cunard, first, and then P&O said fine, and took their ships to Bremerhaven for refit thereafter. Complete own goal by the unions.
I worked in the British power generation industry at the end of the nationalised period. All of the practices described above were endemic. The management were weak and it was almost impossible to get sacked so workers took the P. Privatisation brought new management who cleared the dead wood and things improved massively.
@@Dave5843-d9m I was in the industry during that time and I'm afraid that I have to completely disagree with you. The privatisation was a complete government shambles and consumers are paying far more than they need even with the supposed benefits of shopping around for better deals. I can honestly say that the workers in my power station were good and with a bit of encouragement and support from above could be relied upon to work very well. Only once did I ever need to dismiss anyone. I am pleased to have known and worked with those people. I am not pleased with the government of the time.
Conservatives in most western countries have spent the last 100 years trying to tear down organized workers. They have worked with corporations to paint striking workers in a negative light. They want to be able to work employees to the bone and not give them a living wage. The strikes weren't caused by workers. Strikes are caused by employers refusing to compensate workers fairly. Why would someone do backbreaking work 10 or 12 hours a day and barely get paid enough to survive on while the executives at the company make millions? Our system is backwards from what it should be. If the workers would have been paid a fair wage they could and would do the work just as quickly and as well as any other yard in the world. Unfortunately their employers wanted to keep every single penny they could and not pay the people doing the actual work what they should have. So you can tell your story all you want but those guys were sleeping at work because they weren't getting the compensation they deserved for the work they did. I wouldn't work either if I was getting scraps and my employers were making millions. I'm not talking about socialism, I'm talking about paying a person a fair wage based on the work they do and the profits the company makes. No CEO or any other executive should be making tens of millions of dollars a year while many of their employees are getting paid $40,000. There should be laws limiting all executive compensation to 10x what the lowest paid employee is paid. That includes all bonuses and stock options and any other loopholes should be closed as well. No getting around it by having "contractors" or any of that nonsense. Everyone doing work counts on the project counts as an employee, including the people sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilets. Billion dollar companies paying minimum wage to employees is a crime and should be treated as such. I guarantee if the people doing the actual work were paid well for what they did you wouldn't have the kind of issues you saw.
When she was built, Cunard was a quasi privately held company receive direct and indirect government subsidies. When she was repowered, Cunard was held by private interests whose responsibility was to their shareholders. Cost and ability to finish the job on schedule mattered most.
This video from 1986 explains why at that time the QE2 could not have her re-engine work done at a UK shipyard and why the QM2 was built in France and the Queen Victoria and the current Queen Elizabeth was built in Italy. Just about 2 weeks ago Cunard announced that another new Cunard Ship will enter service in 2022 she will probably be named Queen something some people think her name will be Queen Anne and she will be built in Italy in the same shipyard that built Queen Victoria and the current Queen Elizabeth. It is a shame of what happened to the commercial ship building and commercial ship repair industry in the UK. I am an American and while I hope the SS United States can be saved the thing is if the American flagship SS United States is saved as an static attraction the work will probably have to be done at a foreign shipyard since the commercial ship building and commercial ship repair industry here in the USA is like in the UK does not really exist anymore.
It honestly never did exist like it did overseas. The SS United States was built at Newport News Shipyard and she was always more of a military vessel than a true passenger liner. That shipyard is still in existence thanks to military contracts and should anybody ever ask them for a bid to work on the United States I'm quite sure they will be happy to supply them with one. Now whether it would be competitive with the European Yards is quite another matter altogether. But aside from the United States and the America and a half dozen smaller liners built in the 50s commercial shipbuilding in America has been moribund since before the Civil War. This country always invested far more in the railroads and locomotive industry than it ever did in the shipbuilding industry and when passenger RRs all but died and steam engines did die the aircraft industry rose up to take it's place. Quite frankly one of the primary reasons the US government keeps ordering ships is to keep places like N. News, Electric Boat and the yards in Mississippi in business. Because while we can tolerate not building cruise ships in this country nobody wants to see us having to buy something as critical as warships overseas...
I live on Tyneside and can remember when small my dad took me to Swan Hunters what a amazing place and at the end of the day the workers leaving was like a river of humans, and the local area was a vibrant community, 50 years later the place sadly is decimated
I live in Clydebank Glasgow, some of the worlds most famous ships where built here and it was at the forefront of world shipbuilding, so sad seeing what is left today
Pal, skilled production in the UK is (barring Rolls-Royce and a handful of other's) quashed. I'm from Southampton and we've declined significantly in ship repair / marine manufacture 70-80% since 1995ish.
Absolutely but it was management and refusal to adopt new working practice that killed the industry. Working harder might not have been possible but they also refused (at all levels) to change systems and work smarter.
MrAli171: I've been on Tyneside twice with P&O Bulk Shipping- Firstly when my ship (bulk carrier MV Atherstone) went into drydock at Brigham and Cowan's at South Shields and secondly, when standing by a new build LPG carrier (MV Gandara) at Swann Hunter at Hebburn. It was quite a good time but soon learned never, ever stand outside the entrance gate when the lunchtime hooter sounded!
Fast forward nearly 3 decades and we decide to build a new steam train from scratch..... with a GERMAN boiler. At least one company is holding on to its engineering roots because Britain has essentially tossed its abilities in the bin!
15:46 "...government has a 'catalytic' role..." Spot on! Government provides the equivalent of "base-load" for heavy, strategic industries like shipbuilding via a constant stream of orders for naval/government vessels. This keeps the yards working and ensures the infrastructure and skilled personnel are retained. Yes, it's a drain on the treasury but this can be offset by sales of surplus war/coast guard/marine survey/pilot etc ships to nations that lack local industry.
Ships are damn expensive, long term construction, long term investments. They are not something that can be measured on a quarterly basis. They are (aside from high rise mega buildings) the largest thing man builds and the largest self propelled objects in the world. Everything in shipbuilding is on a VAST scale including the amount of infrastructure needed to build and support them (to say nothing of what is needed to maintain and operate them). After the war the UK government didn't have the money to invest in those industries to help them modernize like they should have and although Cunard made a bloody fortune off of the two Queens in the decade after the war they chose not to invest that money back into the company and(consequently) the shipbuilding industry either. When the airlines took over and Cunard failed to adapt to cruising fast enough and the government withdrew it's support from passenger liners as well the yards didn't have the means to modernize and adapt like the yards in Germany, France and Italy did. Because those yards stayed alive during the lean years in the 70s and early 80s they were perfectly positioned take advantage of the building boom that would kick off in mega cruise ships by the end of that time period. It's a boom that hasn't relented yet either. Ironic that John Brown built the fastest and the largest of the ocean liners in Europe but weren't around to see the construction of Queen Mary 2 by the arch rivals at Penhoet. I'd say that in a small way the French got the last laugh in the rivalry between Queen Mary and Normandie.
The UK built the best ships in the world - then they didn't anymore. My 44 year career at sea started on a ship I saw launched on the Tees - this remains the worst ship I ever sailed on - a death trap. It was built by people who just didn't care about their work managed by people who didn't care about their product. British shipbuilding committed suicide.
For the last 40 or 50 years the term " cost cutting " has just meant people. NOT new technology or adding new equipment or more efficient equipment. Its a shoot your self in the foot,,,, and save money by now only needing one shoe mentality that has affected manufacturing in most industrialized nations threw out the world ( not just the UK ) But this method has worked to raise stock prices almost always. Yes suicide with no life insurance for the workers and golden parachutes for the masterminds of destruction. That "only we can do this " mentality let 3rd world countries turn are table scraps to lobster and steak.... remember when our government loaned them the money , and we sold then there infrastructure ? We sold them power generation, water treatment , sewer and communications systems And now they are using them, surprise surprise.. They have brand new state of the art factories, we had aging obsolescence.
I sailed with an old Russian chief engineer, he constantly praised ships that were built on the Clyde, sadly today all that remains is BAE’s shipyard that builds destroyers that only work half of the time
David Price hit the nail on the head with his comment about bad officers. I have felt for a long time that there is a serious lack of management will and ability in this country.The UK was a power in the world when we had managers who had faith in their businesses and their work forces. Since the 70s, there has been an increasing desire to roll over, sell out (making themselves a nice bonus) and transfer the work to Europe along with all the patents and designs. It makes me sick.
I think Sir David Price got it right-no bad men, only bad officers. Shame the Brits didn't get the re fit job. Glad the QE2 is getting re fitted though. That is a beautiful ship. I'd love to sail on her.
Agreed. And honestly she came out of the refit looking even better IMO. The new larger funnel with the traditional Cunard color scheme was entirely more fitting for the ship then her original thin pipe.
When I saw 'Das Boot' 35 years ago, I thought all the crew of the U-Boat were killed. Apparently, I was wrong. One of them became a skilled shipbuilder in Germany.
My father, Capt. Walter Sturgeon, was a Sandy Hook Harbor Pilot and piloted the QE2 into NY Harbor, during her maiden voyage. My family and I got a quick tour of the ship, plus dinner with the ship’s Captain.
How stupid giving these jobs to any other country, we should invest in our own shipyards and heavy engineering again instead of being a warehouse for the world, keep the work here and make our country great again.
I saw her tied off in 1986 with her funnel off,I took many photos as I was visiting in the schiff half museum with my relatives. I believe her maiden voyage after the refit was a disaster as she leaked like a sieve due to the drawings being given to the ship builder from the marine engineers in England had faults to them,when questioned on these faults the English engineers told them to carry on regardless and follow the drawings,some stories I have heard was that there were 2” gaps in bulkheads this was reported in other videos here on yt.
Because they probably wanted to asset-strip the company & sell it off. What's wrong with them hiring the cranes & spending a bit of money to modernise the yard, in order to get a lucrative return on shipbuilding? Just an excuse.
It is not quite as bad as it sounds. I was personally on board the QE2 during her time in Lloyd Werft, Bremerhaven. Many British workers were transported across from the UK to work onboard whilst the new diesel electric system was installed by the yard.
Doesn't change the fact that the UK shipbuilding industry is absolutely dead where as their rivals in German, Italy, France and Finland are absolutely thriving. The last 40 years has seen the greatest building boom in passenger ship building in history and the UK has spent all of it sitting on the sidelines because they no longer have the skilled labor necessary to be in the business.
I keep looking at this video and I think to myself every single time, what happened to Britain. I'm am in fact British and proud to be, but also sad because of the fact that we just gave up on everything we stood for, from the Railways to Shipbuilding, from Aircraft to Steel. We went from Leader of Innovation and Leader of the Industrial Revolution to nothing. How could we not re-engine a ship that we built. I'm starting to think that people thought she was going to be the last British Ship ever built. I think they were right.
Britain's time has come and gone, lol just like others before it, just as it will be in the future. Britain is just a country of match-box sized joined up terrace so-called 'houses' and semi detached 'houses' living from hand to mouth lol lol . . .
Unfortunately British manufacturing has been left in the dust by almost every other industrialized nation. This is what happens when the amount of government socialism and union ridiculousness impedes any competitive advantage. I’d bet the old Soviet Union could have done the job more efficiently. The Brits are known globally as unreliable due to the work stoppages and red tape involved.
I know this is an old video but This is really piss poor that Britain has come to this. What the hell is going on over there. Aircraft industry, ship building industry
Yes they did. And her new engines worked flawlessly for the next 20 years. When she was retired in 2008 it was more about lacking the modern features that the cruise industry was after (lack of balcony cabins were a particular downfall for QE2) than about her no longer being serviceable. Sadly the British couldn't even get it together to turn her into a dockside attraction like was done with Rotterdam or Queen Mary and she is now in Dubai operating as a floating hotel.
When the QE2 was originally built thanks, even then, to subsidies from the British taxpayer, it was carpeted twice over... because the carpet fitters were walking on to the ship on one end with the carpets and the shipyard workers were walking off the other end with the same carpets. Half of Clydebank was re-carpeted thanks to the QE2. Don't blame the workers. Who's going to turn down free carpets? Blame the management that let them get away with it. Blame the government that used everybody elses tax money to subsidise inefficient industries. Blame the rest of us who were stupid enough to let them all get away with it.
Does this mean that England can no longer build nor refurbish its warships? Or are the resources that England does have (labor, materials, finances) being kept in a drawer only for warships?
I think you mean the UK ? England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all share the same UK armed forces. There are still yards capable of building warships (see HMS Queen Elizabeth for example) along with nuclear submarines. Civilian shipbuilding yards have more or less all gone now, due to many things, notably yards not updating technology and very bad worker / managrment relations.
I Love Queen Elizabeth 2, but I can't believe The British shipyards, who built 50% of the World's merchants ships couldn't refit her. What is happening? It seems that all the major Liners are being built in France, Italy & Germany.
Undoubtedly, their Dock was marginally larger than Southampton's and being 40 ish yrs more modern, probably had more powerful cranes. Thatcher crushed skilled productivity in the UK. She couldn't comprehend what apprenticeships leading to highly skilled men meant, as her father was a skilless fruit and vegetable trader.
It is enough to say that the workers in Barrow-In-Furness who build the nuclear submarines in the 60s lived in abysmal housing in Barrow-in-Furness. Housing which was i believe owned by the wharf or the burrough. Workers in american sub building ship yards had that time shall we say upgraded their living - was it a matter of wages ??? Or a result of the depression and the following WWII ?
that's quite some job, the boilers and turbines were put in during the construction of the ship due to their size. I imagine they will have to cut open the ship to get them out and replace them.
Only bad officers.verry true.i used to work for a engineering company.management went on strike for a week.during that week production went up by a third.
Seeing and hearing Sir Price, the ‘Grandee bollocks’ of an old fashioned elitist, helps understand, how his power-base has never crumbled but is still in control with Boris Johnson.
The balance of a trade protective government and free enterprise . and a decent wage for skilled workers vs. international competition, is a pretty difficult problem to resolve I will admit, but when you throw politics and winning votes into the mix, Solving it becomes virtually impossible, and what almost always happens, the industries just go away forever.
Other countries: See opportunity - look, listen, learn - be competitive. Britain: See competition - Ignore and indulge in superiority complex - Blame everyone else for declining industry.
Meanwhile, the New Queen Elizabeth was built and fitted out by an Italian Shipyard in record time, just a few years ago. Nice of the Italians to help out in that way.........
It is not Cunards issue, it is the the shipyard owners issue! Sad that " seafaring" nation cannot even do a retrofit on a ship originally built in Britain!
Germany was a good choice. When it comes to diesel engine technology, Germany is second to none. Even here in the United States, we are many years behind German diesel technology. In the U.S., Electro-Motive Diesel is probably the most advanced builder of high capacity diesels for locomotive and ship prime movers. The Cummins Engine Company is a distant second to EMD and are very slowly gaining ground but still not quite there. The Caterpillar Engine Company which was once a leader of U.S. produced diesel engines now resides in the back of the pack. Caterpillar now owns EMD however they are still two very different companies operated separately. EMD still rules the prime mover market in the U.S. however Cummins is catching up with their QSK series engines which are more and more finding their way into genset locomotives and tugboats however they are still lagging behind German diesel technology. Maybe someday.
Gas turbines are great for high power but they are very inefficient. Marine diesel engines are the most fuel efficient engines that can be had. There are recent developments where most of the wasted energy from a gas turbine can be captured by a boiler and used to drive a steam engine (google COSAG). But this technology was very immature at the time of the QE2s re-engining.
@@Kimdino1 Thanks, but I read that diesel engines were undesirable for cruise liners because of vibrations. Maybe smaller ones which generate electricity are OK.
We didnt have many skilled people at the time because we stopped training them years ago so we would have to bring in foreign labour and its only now we are starting to retrain people to little to late
How could that possibly have happened, on a 100 million dollar plus contract? That the bid winner would reveal the engine switchout process contemplated only after winning the contract. That's ridiculous.
I would think so too, but look how our wonderful Civil Service awarded a contract for cross channel shipping to a company which didn't actually have any ships!
Outside of Navy ships I don’t think the US is in the ship building business either. Because of labor costs Korea builds a great many ships, I would have thought that labor costs would be prohibitively expensive for German builders also
Unions used to be a necessary thing. But today, they are a joke. The worse jobs I have had were both union jobs. Unions try to micromanage the employers so much that union jobs are not competative with the non union jobs of the same kind. Why hire union builders to make a building that is expensive and built very slowly? Non union builders will make the same building in half the price and twice as fast.
According to the excerpt linked bellow, this German refit did run behind schedule and seems to be according to this brief excerpt have been done not very well as the ship was impounded due to safety concerns upon docking in New York apparently ruclips.net/video/Bbo4u47EVZs/видео.html Perhaps the British shipyards were right in instance not to have done the work.(That is not to invalidate anything that Sir David Price said or that industry didn't need better management or investment. I'm simply commenting on the end result of this refit)
They interview the General Secretary of a union, that perfectly illustrates to you why there is no British Ship building any longer. After WWII Britain elected basically socialists and nationalised industries Willy Nilly, it turned Britain from Industrial and manufacturing superpower, into what it is. A nice spot to holiday, that sells a bit of insurance and banking on the side.
It was strictly political why it was not done in Southampton, We do have the cranes in Southampton, apart from the floating crane, along side number 7 dry dock is a 50 ton crane and 25 ton and 2 10 ton cranes, and more could be bought in on the rails if needed, Vospers got told by the Tory party do not make a bid for the contract, Thatcher era killed the heavy industray and turned the country into a cheap labour force for the service industry, They did not want any one bring good paying jobs back to England
Hi chiefchilly, Very interesting video. I film cruise ships coming to Belfast. The number of cruise ships coming to Belfast over the last number of years has increased once again. This year it is up by 10% on last year. 2018 Belfast will welcome in 117 cruise ships. How many of these cruise ships are built in UK yards? None! How many cruise ships world wide are built in UK yards today? None! Most of the cruise ships coming to Belfast are built in Europe and most are built by our EU friends who have somehow managed to retain their shipbuilds while ours are dead. Why is this when the UK's and Belfast's own yard Harland and Wolff yards were world beaters. The SS Canberra was probably the last cruise ship to be built in Belfast. She was launched in 1960. The last cruise ship built by any UK yard was the 661-berth Saga Ruby built Newcastle upon Tyne 1973 Why can Norway, Italy, Greece, France, Germany all build cruise ships today and UK yards cannot? Is the answer that European Governments support their workers and industry by giving them subsidies and our Government doesn't bother? Who allowed the UK cruise ship building yards to die so that now even if a ship was ordered, our UK yards could no longer build it because the skills have been lost? Why have successive Conservative and Labour Governments both done absolutely nothing to resurrect the UK ship building industry? Do they both think this is an ok situation where huge amounts of money leaves the UK each year to buy ships built in Europe? Not mentioning the resulting generational lack of employment in once thriving shipyard cities. This ongoing situation is a national disgrace. A further disgrace ids that the new Queen Elizabeth 2015 was built in Italy! Yet another disgrace is that most bulk carriers coming to Belfast are built in SE Asia....! So from world ship building leader the UK is now nothing.
British government need to start financal aid to these company's to compete because that's what the eu is doing. Just look at the steel works that as just shut?
People who voted to leave the EU should be aware of this. The UK in 2019 apparently has the 5th largest economy on earth ! Based on what exactly? Certainly not manufacturing in any field..
I myself, through my career have seen how corrupt and incompetent management can rapidly bring to ruin very capable industries with highly talented workers. It is sad.
Hi All, The new container ships are too large to fit thru the St. Lawrence Seaway to get into the Great Lakes. British shipyards could come up with a standard design that will fit, and you might have something that will make a net profit., Thanks for your time, take care.
If you had a major refit or the building of a brand new ship unless it was a rowboat. Then the UK would be the last place to go to. The grip the unions have on the workforce guarantees delays and over runs of your budget. Britain is incapable of building anything any, more. Plane trains ships cars farm machinery you name everything is imported
Pal, we once had semi government funding, much like France, Italy, Germany and Scandinavia, whom had total government help. Please research and enlighten yourself on the current debate.
fitting motors is nothing but cutting a hole in the side and moving them in then welding it shut again. it's the -suppliers- of said motors that are basically limited to siemens/aeg, westinghouse, several japan based conglomerates back then (before china re-entered the game and before aeg went out of business) that define the location where this is most optimized to be done. you're not gonna transport some 200tonnes of steel all the way to the uk just to mount them into a ship there when you can simply do the whole job closer to the factory where the motors and generators are made. it isn't the 'facilities to do the job'. it's the facilities to make the required equipment that define the location.
If the government of Gt.Briton had stopped for a moment when trying so hard to rid the U.K, of unions, we might still have a John Brown ship yard on the Clyde and a lot more in the south of england. Looking at it now Gt.Briton had a good reputation of the best shop builders going , it is a clear picture of government stupidity and unwillingness to support the people in these areas, i dread to think just how many ship builders went to the wall, when we did in fact have some of the best equiped ship building equipement going, but instead they played into the hands of the greddy instead of putting things like new crane in, the owners just filled their own pockets untill they had priced themselves out of the market, and the government stood by and let it happen , choosing to blame tbe work force who clear.y only wanted a fair days pay for their work. It is a real shame that things are the way they are today but if tne government really wanted to many of tbese yards could be re opened.
Time back we had the fight in the dog ,nowadays that's not the case. We are too stuck up with tradition and the past ,thinking it will pave the roadway into the future.But really life is about the confidence and will to succeed,and in my opinion (2024) its all gone. Shameful.
One more thing...the Brits descriminated against Catholics in Harland and wolf in Belfast, not one Catholic was employed there..all Protestant... "carma is a bitch' I hope I live long enough to see them get what's coming to them... Brexit is a good start.
The tax payers just got tired and fed up subsidizing all of these businesses and industries in the UK. The yards earned a terrible reputation for failing to complete work on schedule because of strikes and work slow downs. The workers just assumed that the government subsidies would just keep rolling in.
John Ferguson Did you not hear Sir David Prices' words at the end? Words from a Conservative knight of the realm! So the taxpayer subsidised unemployment instead...thatwas a good deal?
We imported those bl**dy UK shop stewards to Australia so that the unionists would have a better and more successful strike at the drop of the hat. Containers are the best idea anyone ever had as in Australia, the wharfies were always going on strike and when not doing so would be stealing from the cargoes. The unionists in the Australian ship building were schooled the same as their UK cousins. eg when a welder was finished he had to wait until a painter could be spared to dab some redlead onto the welded area, he wasn't allowed to pick up a paint brush. The unionists tried to cripple Australia both during and after the war. Just after the war the coal miners were always going on strike, it got so bad that the army was called in by a LABOUR Government to get production going. The result was that the major purchaser of coal was the NSW Railways then decided to convert to diesel. Thus coal was no longer an essential product. A good example of up yours
Theses days they slice the ship completely in half crosswise, pull the halves apart, then add in a new section. If the engines need to come out for rebuild or replacement, that's when they get done. At the time the QE2 was converted from steam to diesel electric, ship lengthening was not a common practice. The Royal Caribbean "Song of Norway" was stretched 85 feet in 1978. "Nordic Prince" got a stretch in 1980.
now that Britain is OUT from the EU what are you going to do, or better whee are you going to go for your next service? To Korea or Japan? Hongkong or Shanghai? Or back to Germany once more?
The truth is plain enough in all honesty. When she was built by John Brown she was the last gasp of a dying ship building tradition in Great Britain. While the big yards in Italy, France, Germany and Finland were all investing heavily in the future and reinventing how they built ship the British shipbuilding industry simply didn't have the money nor the inclination to do the same nor were they backed by a government that was either inclined to or capable of that investment either. So by the time the great revival in passenger ship building kicked of in the 80s with the first of the new breed of mega cruise ships all those other yards were well positioned to compete. Where in the UK a generation of knowledge and industrial muscle had passed from the scene. The UK never really recovered from WW2 and the loss of her Empire and while none of the other European Nations necessarily had more resources than the UK coming out of that war they all seemed to adapt better to the post war world than Britain did. Perhaps it's because so many of them had already gone through a terrible downturn in fortunes before WW2 even started and so were ready to reinvent themselves while Britain was not. It's a rather sad state of affairs for a nation that built some of the greatest and grandest passenger liners to ever cross the Atlantic. But adapt or die is the name of the game.
The worst part of all of this is, we didn't try to a be competitive on price, work a solution out . Management and unions of British ship yards lost this. The Germans won the contract using good engineering, and thinking. Not going on strike, the management not trying to work out a solution.
It's still going on today. Our work force has been pushed out due to cheap labour in China. Plus hardly these days is British! Also the Australian bloke who was gonna build Titanic 2! It won't be Titanic 2 being built in China. Cause you would have to make her in Northern Ireland along with her older sister ship Olympic. Not alot of people know Titanic was part of White Star's Olympic Class. Well there was 3 of them Olympic, Titanic and two years after the Titanic accident Britannic.
An interesting and depressing documentary. EU 'state aid' directives hadn't yet come into force at that time. Had the repowering project been tendered a few years later, the German and Italian governments would have had to cease policies protecting their heavy industries, and no doubt a Japanese, Korean, Indian or other Asian yard would have got the contract instead.... Reminds me also of a (pre-refit) boiler breakdown which stranded QE2 off Falmouth for a few days in September 1982. Friends of my family in Falmouth who were among the passengers lived down the road from them and were grateful to be taken ashore; the weather just before the start of their holiday had been too wet to mow the lawn and they had an unexpected opportunity to pop back home and do it🤣
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Hats off to Sir David Price for telling it like it is. That's 'old school thinking' for you, forthright and honest.
He was a rare one in the Tory party, He was the one that Told Thatcher your wrong and she will break the country and send it sliding into debt. And he was right, he knew what british management was like, useless and still are.
@@southerneruk Wow! That's an education, as I didn't realise he was a tory type, as he sounded so Labour, within his virtue's.
@@manos3790 He was a real rare one, he knew why British industry was going bankrupt in the 1930's, it was all down to greed, and that greed went on though out the war years, it was the reason why Labour nationalise industry that went bankrupt, to save jobs and instead of the few having the profits, the profits went towards the country. He hated Thatcher
@@southerneruk Thank you so much for your enlightenment. Thatcher is the reason for the downfall of the UK 's productivity, which I've been well aware of for decades 🙄
@@manos3790 It was very political why no british ship yards put a bit in
I was there as an employee of MAN Company, during commissioning the MAN Diesel engines and the sea-trials. An exciting time! And afterwards I did many trips as a service enginer the following years. Still proud have been a part of it!
I remember watching a documentary on British TV, sometime around the early to mid '90s. As far as I can remember, it stated that Germany had a policy of subsidising both coal-mining and shipbuilding, as both industries were deemed to be vital to the German economy. I distinctly remember one shipyard owner saying he was able to take advantage of closure of British shipyards, by employing British craftsmen who were highly skilled, and who were willing to work for less than German labour.
Sir David Price: "Everything, in the end, gets back to management. I'm of the old generation. There is no such thing as bad men only bad officers."
I like this guy XD
Napoleon expressed a very similar view: "...there is no such thing as a bad SOLDIER- there are only bad OFFICERS!"
British industry was failed by its management. They ripped off workers in the early days which led to the unions. Their incompetence allowed the unions to swing power the opposite way. The gross waste and inefficiency killed the industry.
shame we don't have any like him still ...
It's amazing to me that this ship was saved. But if you ever look into America's one fasted Atlantic cruise ship, the SS United States. Sadly left in a dock taken apart then left more or less rotting away. Pretty sad.
Brings back memories, my wife and son and I traveled on the QE II from Southampton to New York in 1970 when she was brand new. I was offered a job as a programmer by a large Chicago company working at their corporate computer center, that is when computers were REAL COMPUTERS, not the wimpy things we have today, just kidding.
We felt VERY SPECIAL and our families accompanied us to Southampton to see us off on our adventure, my mother and mother in law were allowed to come on board to see our cabin and to say goodbye.
A very emotional experience indeed.
I joined the SS Canberra as an engineer the day she got back from the Falklands, and was on her for the duration of her refit and for another four years.
For a lot of the refit I was on the overnight fire watch. I saw the night shift Vosper shipyard workers come on board and into the engine room, fart about for an hour or so, and then settle down to sleep through the night. As I watched them.
For the following refits we did, the Vosper workers would strip the engine room down, get into parts, and then find a reason to go on strike. Vosper Thornycroft were asked to give a guarantee that both Canberra and the QE2 would be kept to a 6 week schedule. Of course they couldn’t do that because of the threat of strikes. So both Cunard, first, and then P&O said fine, and took their ships to Bremerhaven for refit thereafter. Complete own goal by the unions.
Good old Britain
And a very British Brexit too.
I worked in the British power generation industry at the end of the nationalised period. All of the practices described above were endemic. The management were weak and it was almost impossible to get sacked so workers took the P.
Privatisation brought new management who cleared the dead wood and things improved massively.
@@Dave5843-d9m I was in the industry during that time and I'm afraid that I have to completely disagree with you. The privatisation was a complete government shambles and consumers are paying far more than they need even with the supposed benefits of shopping around for better deals.
I can honestly say that the workers in my power station were good and with a bit of encouragement and support from above could be relied upon to work very well. Only once did I ever need to dismiss anyone. I am pleased to have known and worked with those people. I am not pleased with the government of the time.
Conservatives in most western countries have spent the last 100 years trying to tear down organized workers. They have worked with corporations to paint striking workers in a negative light. They want to be able to work employees to the bone and not give them a living wage. The strikes weren't caused by workers. Strikes are caused by employers refusing to compensate workers fairly. Why would someone do backbreaking work 10 or 12 hours a day and barely get paid enough to survive on while the executives at the company make millions? Our system is backwards from what it should be.
If the workers would have been paid a fair wage they could and would do the work just as quickly and as well as any other yard in the world. Unfortunately their employers wanted to keep every single penny they could and not pay the people doing the actual work what they should have.
So you can tell your story all you want but those guys were sleeping at work because they weren't getting the compensation they deserved for the work they did. I wouldn't work either if I was getting scraps and my employers were making millions.
I'm not talking about socialism, I'm talking about paying a person a fair wage based on the work they do and the profits the company makes. No CEO or any other executive should be making tens of millions of dollars a year while many of their employees are getting paid $40,000. There should be laws limiting all executive compensation to 10x what the lowest paid employee is paid. That includes all bonuses and stock options and any other loopholes should be closed as well. No getting around it by having "contractors" or any of that nonsense. Everyone doing work counts on the project counts as an employee, including the people sweeping the floor and cleaning the toilets. Billion dollar companies paying minimum wage to employees is a crime and should be treated as such.
I guarantee if the people doing the actual work were paid well for what they did you wouldn't have the kind of issues you saw.
When she was built, Cunard was a quasi privately held company receive direct and indirect government subsidies. When she was repowered, Cunard was held by private interests whose responsibility was to their shareholders. Cost and ability to finish the job on schedule mattered most.
This video from 1986 explains why at that time the QE2 could not have her re-engine work done at a UK shipyard and why the QM2 was built in France and the Queen Victoria and the current Queen Elizabeth was built in Italy. Just about 2 weeks ago Cunard announced that another new Cunard Ship will enter service in 2022 she will probably be named Queen something some people think her name will be Queen Anne and she will be built in Italy in the same shipyard that built Queen Victoria and the current Queen Elizabeth. It is a shame of what happened to the commercial ship building and commercial ship repair industry in the UK. I am an American and while I hope the SS United States can be saved the thing is if the American flagship SS United States is saved as an static attraction the work will probably have to be done at a foreign shipyard since the commercial ship building and commercial ship repair industry here in the USA is like in the UK does not really exist anymore.
It honestly never did exist like it did overseas. The SS United States was built at Newport News Shipyard and she was always more of a military vessel than a true passenger liner. That shipyard is still in existence thanks to military contracts and should anybody ever ask them for a bid to work on the United States I'm quite sure they will be happy to supply them with one. Now whether it would be competitive with the European Yards is quite another matter altogether. But aside from the United States and the America and a half dozen smaller liners built in the 50s commercial shipbuilding in America has been moribund since before the Civil War. This country always invested far more in the railroads and locomotive industry than it ever did in the shipbuilding industry and when passenger RRs all but died and steam engines did die the aircraft industry rose up to take it's place. Quite frankly one of the primary reasons the US government keeps ordering ships is to keep places like N. News, Electric Boat and the yards in Mississippi in business. Because while we can tolerate not building cruise ships in this country nobody wants to see us having to buy something as critical as warships overseas...
$$$$$$$$UNIONS$$$$$$$$$
@@ashleighelizabeth5916, absolutely untrue.
@@colinmontgomery1956 wow! What a well thought out argument you presented. I'm sure everybody is convinced by those two words you wrote.
True no bad men but bad management!
I dunno, I've worked with some real idiots in my time.
3:09
This is the best representation of American tourism I can think of.
Old people on a boat listening to horrific singing.
I agree, fancy paying thousands of pounds to listen to that dross.
American weighing in. Completely agree lol. Old rich white Americans are weird
I live on Tyneside and can remember when small my dad took me to Swan Hunters what a amazing place and at the end of the day the workers leaving was like a river of humans, and the local area was a vibrant community, 50 years later the place sadly is decimated
I live in Clydebank Glasgow, some of the worlds most famous ships where built here and it was at the forefront of world shipbuilding, so sad seeing what is left today
Pal, skilled production in the UK is (barring Rolls-Royce and a handful of other's) quashed. I'm from Southampton and we've declined significantly in ship repair / marine manufacture 70-80% since 1995ish.
Absolutely but it was management and refusal to adopt new working practice that killed the industry. Working harder might not have been possible but they also refused (at all levels) to change systems and work smarter.
MrAli171: I've been on Tyneside twice with P&O Bulk Shipping- Firstly when my ship (bulk carrier MV Atherstone) went into drydock at Brigham and Cowan's at South Shields and secondly, when standing by a new build LPG carrier (MV Gandara) at Swann Hunter at Hebburn. It was quite a good time but soon learned never, ever stand outside the entrance gate when the lunchtime hooter sounded!
Thanks for your description.
Fast forward nearly 3 decades and we decide to build a new steam train from scratch..... with a GERMAN boiler. At least one company is holding on to its engineering roots because Britain has essentially tossed its abilities in the bin!
15:46 "...government has a 'catalytic' role..." Spot on! Government provides the equivalent of "base-load" for heavy, strategic industries like shipbuilding via a constant stream of orders for naval/government vessels. This keeps the yards working and ensures the infrastructure and skilled personnel are retained. Yes, it's a drain on the treasury but this can be offset by sales of surplus war/coast guard/marine survey/pilot etc ships to nations that lack local industry.
Ships are damn expensive, long term construction, long term investments. They are not something that can be measured on a quarterly basis. They are (aside from high rise mega buildings) the largest thing man builds and the largest self propelled objects in the world. Everything in shipbuilding is on a VAST scale including the amount of infrastructure needed to build and support them (to say nothing of what is needed to maintain and operate them). After the war the UK government didn't have the money to invest in those industries to help them modernize like they should have and although Cunard made a bloody fortune off of the two Queens in the decade after the war they chose not to invest that money back into the company and(consequently) the shipbuilding industry either. When the airlines took over and Cunard failed to adapt to cruising fast enough and the government withdrew it's support from passenger liners as well the yards didn't have the means to modernize and adapt like the yards in Germany, France and Italy did. Because those yards stayed alive during the lean years in the 70s and early 80s they were perfectly positioned take advantage of the building boom that would kick off in mega cruise ships by the end of that time period. It's a boom that hasn't relented yet either. Ironic that John Brown built the fastest and the largest of the ocean liners in Europe but weren't around to see the construction of Queen Mary 2 by the arch rivals at Penhoet. I'd say that in a small way the French got the last laugh in the rivalry between Queen Mary and Normandie.
The UK built the best ships in the world - then they didn't anymore. My 44 year career at sea started on a ship I saw launched on the Tees - this remains the worst ship I ever sailed on - a death trap. It was built by people who just didn't care about their work managed by people who didn't care about their product. British shipbuilding committed suicide.
For the last 40 or 50 years the term " cost cutting " has just meant people. NOT new technology or adding new equipment or more efficient equipment. Its a shoot your self in the foot,,,, and save money by now only needing one shoe mentality that has affected manufacturing in most industrialized nations threw out the world ( not just the UK ) But this method has worked to raise stock prices almost always. Yes suicide with no life insurance for the workers and golden parachutes for the masterminds of destruction. That "only we can do this " mentality let 3rd world countries turn are table scraps to lobster and steak.... remember when our government loaned them the money , and we sold then there infrastructure ? We sold them power generation, water treatment , sewer and communications systems And now they are using them, surprise surprise.. They have brand new state of the art factories, we had aging obsolescence.
I sailed with an old Russian chief engineer, he constantly praised ships that were built on the Clyde, sadly today all that remains is BAE’s shipyard that builds destroyers that only work half of the time
Hyacinth Bucket belting out a tune. Poor Richard 🤣
That's pronounced BooKAY! Hyacinth BooKAY.
Poor Onslow .... eating with the crew.
David Price hit the nail on the head with his comment about bad officers. I have felt for a long time that there is a serious lack of management will and ability in this country.The UK was a power in the world when we had managers who had faith in their businesses and their work forces. Since the 70s, there has been an increasing desire to roll over, sell out (making themselves a nice bonus) and transfer the work to Europe along with all the patents and designs. It makes me sick.
Sir David tells it as it was. A Conservative knight of the realm condemns British management. It's enough to make grown men weep.
I think Sir David Price got it right-no bad men, only bad officers. Shame the Brits didn't get the re fit job. Glad the QE2 is getting re fitted though. That is a beautiful ship. I'd love to sail on her.
Quite a pretty ship. In my opinion the most lovely of her era!
Agreed. And honestly she came out of the refit looking even better IMO. The new larger funnel with the traditional Cunard color scheme was entirely more fitting for the ship then her original thin pipe.
Englishman ; are you sure you can do it in 179 days?
German ; yes i am sure
Brit ; why so sure
German; because we are not british.
When I saw 'Das Boot' 35 years ago, I thought all the crew of the U-Boat were killed. Apparently, I was wrong. One of them became a skilled shipbuilder in Germany.
My father, Capt. Walter Sturgeon, was a Sandy Hook Harbor Pilot and piloted the QE2 into NY Harbor, during her maiden voyage. My family and I got a quick tour of the ship, plus dinner with the ship’s Captain.
How stupid giving these jobs to any other country, we should invest in our own shipyards and heavy engineering again instead of being a warehouse for the world, keep the work here and make our country great again.
Unions destroyed every industry in the west
Dave Shaw If unions destroyed every industry in the west, how do you explain the work being done in Germany then?
Too late for that I'm afraid but I understand your feelings.
I saw her tied off in 1986 with her funnel off,I took many photos as I was visiting in the schiff half museum with my relatives.
I believe her maiden voyage after the refit was a disaster as she leaked like a sieve due to the drawings being given to the ship builder from the marine engineers in England had faults to them,when questioned on these faults the English engineers told them to carry on regardless and follow the drawings,some stories I have heard was that there were 2” gaps in bulkheads this was reported in other videos here on yt.
A ship is not making it from America to UK with 2 inch gaps between bulkheads
ThatSly B it was found on the shake down cruise,there is video footage of it.
@@harryweyer2174 you are saying 2 inch gaps to the external bulkheads?
This all happened 33 years ago you know...
Why couldn't it have been done at Harland and Wolff in Belfast? It does have a large dry dock with famously large cranes.
Because they probably wanted to asset-strip the company & sell it off. What's wrong with them hiring the cranes & spending a bit of money to modernise the yard, in order to get a lucrative return on shipbuilding? Just an excuse.
It is not quite as bad as it sounds. I was personally on board the QE2 during her time in Lloyd Werft, Bremerhaven. Many British workers were transported across from the UK to work onboard whilst the new diesel electric system was installed by the yard.
So why didn't it get done in GB I ask?
Doesn't change the fact that the UK shipbuilding industry is absolutely dead where as their rivals in German, Italy, France and Finland are absolutely thriving. The last 40 years has seen the greatest building boom in passenger ship building in history and the UK has spent all of it sitting on the sidelines because they no longer have the skilled labor necessary to be in the business.
I keep looking at this video and I think to myself every single time, what happened to Britain. I'm am in fact British and proud to be, but also sad because of the fact that we just gave up on everything we stood for, from the Railways to Shipbuilding, from Aircraft to Steel. We went from Leader of Innovation and Leader of the Industrial Revolution to nothing. How could we not re-engine a ship that we built. I'm starting to think that people thought she was going to be the last British Ship ever built. I think they were right.
We just rolled over, and especially in recent years so as not to upset the milleniols
redice.tv/news/the-kalergi-plan-for-european-genocide
redice.tv/news/the-kalergi-plan-for-european-genocide
Unfortunately no lesson was learned, stilling shooting yourselves in the foot with Brexit
Britain's time has come and gone, lol just like others before it, just as it will be in the future. Britain is just a country of match-box sized joined up terrace so-called 'houses' and semi detached 'houses' living from hand to mouth lol lol . . .
My friend and neighbour worked on this conversion from Northern Ireland he worked on the electrical side
HEY DOES ANYBODY KNOW WHAT SOFTWARE THIS VIDEO WAS CREATED WITH?
Charles Wheeler...what a brilliant journalist he was...
Unfortunately British manufacturing has been left in the dust by almost every other industrialized nation. This is what happens when the amount of government socialism and union ridiculousness impedes any competitive advantage. I’d bet the old Soviet Union could have done the job more efficiently. The Brits are known globally as unreliable due to the work stoppages and red tape involved.
Note that the re-engine and this report was over the 1986-1987 winter. It is not current.
And management have continued to line their own pockets at the expense of everyone else, greed is the most powerful force known to man.
What about love ??
@@DynamicSeq Good question what about love, I figure it's round about 17 on the scale, hate and a multitude of other things come higher.
I know this is an old video but This is really piss poor that Britain has come to this. What the hell is going on over there. Aircraft industry, ship building industry
Merlin it’s so sad 😞brits need to wake up. Take England back. It can be done. Heads have to roll
Globalist want de-industrialization...
So, did they finish on time?
Yes they did. And her new engines worked flawlessly for the next 20 years. When she was retired in 2008 it was more about lacking the modern features that the cruise industry was after (lack of balcony cabins were a particular downfall for QE2) than about her no longer being serviceable. Sadly the British couldn't even get it together to turn her into a dockside attraction like was done with Rotterdam or Queen Mary and she is now in Dubai operating as a floating hotel.
No pride left in Great Britain
AND WHILE THE POLITICIANS, THE PRESS, AND THE WHINERS CARRY ON , THE ENGINEERS AND THE MECHANICS
FINISH THE JOB AT HAND!
When the QE2 was originally built thanks, even then, to subsidies from the British taxpayer, it was carpeted twice over... because the carpet fitters were walking on to the ship on one end with the carpets and the shipyard workers were walking off the other end with the same carpets. Half of Clydebank was re-carpeted thanks to the QE2. Don't blame the workers. Who's going to turn down free carpets? Blame the management that let them get away with it. Blame the government that used everybody elses tax money to subsidise inefficient industries. Blame the rest of us who were stupid enough to let them all get away with it.
Does this mean that England can no longer build nor refurbish its warships? Or are the resources that England does have (labor, materials, finances) being kept in a drawer only for warships?
I think you mean the UK ? England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland all share the same UK armed forces.
There are still yards capable of building warships (see HMS Queen Elizabeth for example) along with nuclear submarines. Civilian shipbuilding yards have more or less all gone now, due to many things, notably yards not updating technology and very bad worker / managrment relations.
I Love Queen Elizabeth 2, but I can't believe The British shipyards, who built 50% of the World's merchants ships couldn't refit her. What is happening? It seems that all the major Liners are being built in France, Italy & Germany.
I wonder if Harland and Wolff could not have done it?
Undoubtedly, their Dock was marginally larger than Southampton's and being 40 ish yrs more modern, probably had more powerful cranes. Thatcher crushed skilled productivity in the UK. She couldn't comprehend what apprenticeships leading to highly skilled men meant, as her father was a skilless fruit and vegetable trader.
@@manos3790 I must admit her cunning plan to break the power of unions in industry was to get rid of industry.
@@manos3790 Harland & Wolff craves are the largest in Europe and can lift 1800 tons -they also have a 20
It is enough to say that the workers in Barrow-In-Furness who build the nuclear submarines in the 60s lived in abysmal housing in Barrow-in-Furness. Housing which was i believe owned by the wharf or the burrough.
Workers in american sub building ship yards had that time shall we say upgraded their living - was it a matter of wages ??? Or a result of the depression and the following WWII ?
My QE II....
I was CDP in the Queen's Grill in 2004-2005...
It’s a shame it could not be refitted at home in the U.K..
Competing in a world where 40% subsidize iis not unheard of is tough!!!
So with all the videos being removed fromY T they now have to pull from the 1980’s archives to provide us with “safe” content? Nice
that's quite some job, the boilers and turbines were put in during the construction of the ship due to their size. I imagine they will have to cut open the ship to get them out and replace them.
@Bernie Wright I wrote that before I saw the part about taking out the boiler intakes and lowering it in so they don't need a larger dry dock.
Only bad officers.verry true.i used to work for a engineering company.management went on strike for a week.during that week production went up by a third.
Seeing and hearing Sir Price, the ‘Grandee bollocks’ of an old fashioned elitist, helps understand, how his power-base has never crumbled but is still in control with Boris Johnson.
The balance of a trade protective government and free enterprise . and a decent wage for skilled workers vs. international competition, is a pretty difficult problem to resolve I will admit, but when you throw politics and winning votes into the mix, Solving it becomes virtually impossible, and what almost always happens, the industries just go away forever.
yaya, zis can be done in 179 days. I'm very confident. After all, we're ze Germans, yaya. And we're gonna do it schnell schnell...
Other countries: See opportunity - look, listen, learn - be competitive.
Britain: See competition - Ignore and indulge in superiority complex - Blame everyone else for declining industry.
Ah the germans they gave us pretzels, and Fanta Thank you Germany!
Which is rather interesting, being that for all intents and purposes, Germany does not even have a real functional navy!
Meanwhile, the New Queen Elizabeth was built and fitted out by an Italian Shipyard in record time, just a few years ago.
Nice of the Italians to help out in that way.........
Perhaps they could have got Rover to fit nine montego diesel engines instead of the man b&w 's.
You wretched fool.
In the 1990s two fine UK deisei engine manufacturers were bought out by Man B& W and shut down with in two years
the problem with british yards was they where constantly on bloody strike
Is that British ship yard the same one that delayed the up grades on the HMS Hood in 1939???
Would have thought that that was a navy/government decision??
Once again, so many experts, (in the media) so little knowledge and ability.
It is not Cunards issue, it is the the shipyard owners issue! Sad that " seafaring" nation cannot even do a retrofit on a ship originally built in Britain!
Germany was a good choice. When it comes to diesel engine technology, Germany is second to none. Even here in the United States, we are many years behind German diesel technology. In the U.S., Electro-Motive Diesel is probably the most advanced builder of high capacity diesels for locomotive and ship prime movers. The Cummins Engine Company is a distant second to EMD and are very slowly gaining ground but still not quite there. The Caterpillar Engine Company which was once a leader of U.S. produced diesel engines now resides in the back of the pack. Caterpillar now owns EMD however they are still two very different companies operated separately. EMD still rules the prime mover market in the U.S. however Cummins is catching up with their QSK series engines which are more and more finding their way into genset locomotives and tugboats however they are still lagging behind German diesel technology. Maybe someday.
Cat owns Electro- Motive
I thought passenger ships used gas turbines now. Can it be converted?.
Gas turbines are great for high power but they are very inefficient. Marine diesel engines are the most fuel efficient engines that can be had.
There are recent developments where most of the wasted energy from a gas turbine can be captured by a boiler and used to drive a steam engine (google COSAG). But this technology was very immature at the time of the QE2s re-engining.
@@Kimdino1 Thanks, but I read that diesel engines were undesirable for cruise liners because of vibrations. Maybe smaller ones which generate electricity are OK.
We didnt have many skilled people at the time because we stopped training them years ago so we would have to bring in foreign labour and its only now we are starting to retrain people to little to late
Got a toy 747 year they came out. Most other transatlantic line had been gone by early 70s. Qe2 soldiered on.
There's no doubt about it, we are the best! Ahoi from Germany!
@Charlie K Maybe.BUT HOW MUCH LONGER?????THAT FUCKING MERKEL ALLOWED MUSLIM INVASION.
How could that possibly have happened, on a 100 million dollar plus contract? That the bid winner would reveal the engine switchout process contemplated only after winning the contract. That's ridiculous.
I would think so too, but look how our wonderful Civil Service awarded a contract for cross channel shipping to a company which didn't actually have any ships!
Outside of Navy ships I don’t think the US is in the ship building business either. Because of labor costs Korea builds a great many ships, I would have thought that labor costs would be prohibitively expensive for German builders also
Did this ever happen?
OMG!@11.20 They forgot to tell us these 'scrap parts' will be used to build a new battleship!!!
Unions used to be a necessary thing. But today, they are a joke. The worse jobs I have had were both union jobs. Unions try to micromanage the employers so much that union jobs are not competative with the non union jobs of the same kind. Why hire union builders to make a building that is expensive and built very slowly? Non union builders will make the same building in half the price and twice as fast.
Let me see that big unnatural smile
The Germans would have been laughing their arses off. "Ve haff ozzer vays off beating you!"
According to the excerpt linked bellow, this German refit did run behind schedule and seems to be according to this brief excerpt have been done not very well as the ship was impounded due to safety concerns upon docking in New York apparently ruclips.net/video/Bbo4u47EVZs/видео.html
Perhaps the British shipyards were right in instance not to have done the work.(That is not to invalidate anything that Sir David Price said or that industry didn't need better management or investment. I'm simply commenting on the end result of this refit)
QE2 Great !!!
They interview the General Secretary of a union, that perfectly illustrates to you why there is no British Ship building any longer. After WWII Britain elected basically socialists and nationalised industries Willy Nilly, it turned Britain from Industrial and manufacturing superpower, into what it is. A nice spot to holiday, that sells a bit of insurance and banking on the side.
To much money spent on useless programs destroyed Britain’s ability to stay competitive.
Economic policies that favoured the banks over manufacturers killed investment.
It was strictly political why it was not done in Southampton, We do have the cranes in Southampton, apart from the floating crane, along side number 7 dry dock is a 50 ton crane and 25 ton and 2 10 ton cranes, and more could be bought in on the rails if needed, Vospers got told by the Tory party do not make a bid for the contract, Thatcher era killed the heavy industray and turned the country into a cheap labour force for the service industry, They did not want any one bring good paying jobs back to England
They probably tried to put dorman diesels in it....... gets over 25c..the spontaneous leg ejection engine
Hi chiefchilly, Very interesting video.
I film cruise ships coming to Belfast.
The number of cruise ships coming to Belfast over the last number of years has increased once again. This year it is up by 10% on last year.
2018 Belfast will welcome in 117 cruise ships.
How many of these cruise ships are built in UK yards?
None!
How many cruise ships world wide are built in UK yards today?
None!
Most of the cruise ships coming to Belfast are built in Europe and most are built by our EU friends who have somehow managed to retain their shipbuilds while ours are dead.
Why is this when the UK's and Belfast's own yard Harland and Wolff yards were world beaters. The SS Canberra was probably the last cruise ship to be built in Belfast. She was launched in 1960.
The last cruise ship built by any UK yard was the 661-berth Saga Ruby built Newcastle upon Tyne 1973
Why can Norway, Italy, Greece, France, Germany all build cruise ships today and UK yards cannot?
Is the answer that European Governments support their workers and industry by giving them subsidies and our Government doesn't bother?
Who allowed the UK cruise ship building yards to die so that now even if a ship was ordered, our UK yards could no longer build it because the skills have been lost?
Why have successive Conservative and Labour Governments both done absolutely nothing to resurrect the UK ship building industry?
Do they both think this is an ok situation where huge amounts of money leaves the UK each year to buy ships built in Europe? Not mentioning the resulting generational lack of employment in once thriving shipyard cities.
This ongoing situation is a national disgrace.
A further disgrace ids that the new Queen Elizabeth 2015 was built in Italy!
Yet another disgrace is that most bulk carriers coming to Belfast are built in SE Asia....!
So from world ship building leader the UK is now nothing.
British government need to start financal aid to these company's to compete because that's what the eu is doing. Just look at the steel works that as just shut?
redice.tv/news/the-kalergi-plan-for-european-genocide
People who voted to leave the EU should be aware of this. The UK in 2019 apparently has the 5th largest economy on earth ! Based on what exactly? Certainly not manufacturing in any field..
I myself, through my career have seen how corrupt and incompetent management can rapidly bring to ruin very capable industries with highly talented workers. It is sad.
OMG David Price's great great grandfather built the HMS Hood!!!!!!!!!!!
Nothing like Expecting Too Much - Too Fast - Do the Job Right - Everyone is in a Big Hurry - To Go Knowhere Fast...
So What Happened? Was the QE2 ready on time with it's new diesel-electric drive system?
Hi All, The new container ships are too large to fit thru the St. Lawrence Seaway to get into the Great Lakes. British shipyards could come up with a standard design that will fit, and you might have something that will make a net profit., Thanks for your time, take care.
If you had a major refit or the building of a brand new ship unless it was a rowboat. Then the UK would be the last place to go to. The grip the unions have on the workforce guarantees delays and over runs of your budget. Britain is incapable of building anything any, more. Plane trains ships cars farm machinery you name everything is imported
cobblers UK has fallen so far behind, gantry cranes in Asia lifting over 2000 tonne
Pal, we once had semi government funding, much like France, Italy, Germany and Scandinavia, whom had total government help. Please research and enlighten yourself on the current debate.
fitting motors is nothing but cutting a hole in the side and moving them in then welding it shut again. it's the -suppliers- of said motors that are basically limited to siemens/aeg, westinghouse, several japan based conglomerates back then (before china re-entered the game and before aeg went out of business) that define the location where this is most optimized to be done. you're not gonna transport some 200tonnes of steel all the way to the uk just to mount them into a ship there when you can simply do the whole job closer to the factory where the motors and generators are made. it isn't the 'facilities to do the job'. it's the facilities to make the required equipment that define the location.
"So why can't you do it in Britain?"
"We don't have the facilities"
"But we visited the dock"
"No"
"We saw the crane"
"No"
If the government of Gt.Briton had stopped for a moment when trying so hard to rid the U.K, of unions, we might still have a John Brown ship yard on the Clyde and a lot more in the south of england.
Looking at it now Gt.Briton had a good reputation of the best shop builders going , it is a clear picture of government stupidity and unwillingness to support the people in these areas, i dread to think just how many ship builders went to the wall, when we did in fact have some of the best equiped ship building equipement going, but instead they played into the hands of the greddy instead of putting things like new crane in, the owners just filled their own pockets untill they had priced themselves out of the market, and the government stood by and let it happen , choosing to blame tbe work force who clear.y only wanted a fair days pay for their work.
It is a real shame that things are the way they are today but if tne government really wanted to many of tbese yards could be re opened.
Time back we had the fight in the dog ,nowadays that's not the case. We are too stuck up with tradition and the past ,thinking it will pave the roadway into the future.But really life is about the confidence and will to succeed,and in my opinion (2024) its all gone. Shameful.
One more thing...the Brits descriminated against Catholics in Harland and wolf in Belfast, not one Catholic was employed there..all Protestant... "carma is a bitch' I hope I live long enough to see them get what's coming to them... Brexit is a good start.
1985 Crew . Scouse mafia running the ship !
The tax payers just got tired and fed up subsidizing all of these businesses and industries in the UK. The yards earned a terrible reputation for failing to complete work on schedule because of strikes and work slow downs. The workers just assumed that the government subsidies would just keep rolling in.
John Ferguson Did you not hear Sir David Prices' words at the end? Words from a Conservative knight of the realm! So the taxpayer subsidised unemployment instead...thatwas a good deal?
My experience as well. The Vosper Thornycroft yard workers would strip the ships down then go on strike. Idiot unions cost the jobs.
We imported those bl**dy UK shop stewards to Australia so that the unionists would have a better and more successful strike at the drop of the hat. Containers are the best idea anyone ever had as in Australia, the wharfies were always going on strike and when not doing so would be stealing from the cargoes. The unionists in the Australian ship building were schooled the same as their UK cousins. eg when a welder was finished he had to wait until a painter could be spared to dab some redlead onto the welded area, he wasn't allowed to pick up a paint brush. The unionists tried to cripple Australia both during and after the war. Just after the war the coal miners were always going on strike, it got so bad that the army was called in by a LABOUR Government to get production going. The result was that the major purchaser of coal was the NSW Railways then decided to convert to diesel. Thus coal was no longer an essential product. A good example of up yours
The best way of doing ships engine jobs is thru the side.
Theses days they slice the ship completely in half crosswise, pull the halves apart, then add in a new section. If the engines need to come out for rebuild or replacement, that's when they get done. At the time the QE2 was converted from steam to diesel electric, ship lengthening was not a common practice. The Royal Caribbean "Song of Norway" was stretched 85 feet in 1978. "Nordic Prince" got a stretch in 1980.
This is what the EU did for GB
now that Britain is OUT from the EU what are you going to do, or better whee are you going to go for your next service? To Korea or Japan? Hongkong or Shanghai? Or back to Germany once more?
The truth is plain enough in all honesty. When she was built by John Brown she was the last gasp of a dying ship building tradition in Great Britain. While the big yards in Italy, France, Germany and Finland were all investing heavily in the future and reinventing how they built ship the British shipbuilding industry simply didn't have the money nor the inclination to do the same nor were they backed by a government that was either inclined to or capable of that investment either. So by the time the great revival in passenger ship building kicked of in the 80s with the first of the new breed of mega cruise ships all those other yards were well positioned to compete. Where in the UK a generation of knowledge and industrial muscle had passed from the scene.
The UK never really recovered from WW2 and the loss of her Empire and while none of the other European Nations necessarily had more resources than the UK coming out of that war they all seemed to adapt better to the post war world than Britain did. Perhaps it's because so many of them had already gone through a terrible downturn in fortunes before WW2 even started and so were ready to reinvent themselves while Britain was not. It's a rather sad state of affairs for a nation that built some of the greatest and grandest passenger liners to ever cross the Atlantic. But adapt or die is the name of the game.
The worst part of all of this is, we didn't try to a be competitive on price, work a solution out . Management and unions of British ship yards lost this. The Germans won the contract using good engineering, and thinking. Not going on strike, the management not trying to work out a solution.
Personally, I like steam. Britain should have done the engines. Diesel or steam.
It's still going on today. Our work force has been pushed out due to cheap labour in China. Plus hardly these days is British!
Also the Australian bloke who was gonna build Titanic 2! It won't be Titanic 2 being built in China. Cause you would have to make her in Northern Ireland along with her older sister ship Olympic. Not alot of people know Titanic was part of White Star's Olympic Class. Well there was 3 of them Olympic, Titanic and two years after the Titanic accident Britannic.
British labor unions have priced themselves right out of the shipbuilding market. Along with the U.S.A. and Germans.
An interesting and depressing documentary. EU 'state aid' directives hadn't yet come into force at that time. Had the repowering project been tendered a few years later, the German and Italian governments would have had to cease policies protecting their heavy industries, and no doubt a Japanese, Korean, Indian or other Asian yard would have got the contract instead....
Reminds me also of a (pre-refit) boiler breakdown which stranded QE2 off Falmouth for a few days in September 1982. Friends of my family in Falmouth who were among the passengers lived down the road from them and were grateful to be taken ashore; the weather just before the start of their holiday had been too wet to mow the lawn and they had an unexpected opportunity to pop back home and do it🤣
sounds like alot of politics involved , like children arguing, no one is to blame and everyone is to blame