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Cunard Line's Queen Victoria Arrives into Belfast Harbour for Dry-Dock Operations

28th April 2022
Cunard's Queen Victoria arriving to Harland & Wolff shipyard is the only ever Cunard ship to dry-dock in Belfast. Cunard's Queen Victoria arriving to Harland & Wolff shipyard is the only ever Cunard ship to dry-dock in Belfast. Credit: Harland&Wolffplc-facebook

The 294m Queen Victoria cruise ship is in Belfast Harbour for dry-docking and is another luxurious vessel turning heads this week.

Putting the sheer scale into context, Queen Victoria as Belfast Telegraph writes, is around 25m longer than the Titanic or the equivalent of 20 buses back to back.

Operated by the Cunard Line, the cruise ship arrived from Tyneside on Tuesday and is capable of carrying more than 2,000 passengers and 980 crew.

Guests can enjoy a spectacular range of entertainment from a full theatre and ballroom to a spa and gym, pool, expanded sun deck and even a winter garden and 6,000 book library.

This time around no tourists are on board as the Queen Victoria is undergoing dry dock operations at Harland & Wolff as Afloat previously reported.

It is now the largest ever cruise ship to have ever dry-docked in a UK shipyard and the only ever Cunard ship to dry-dock in Belfast.

The 270m Aurora from P&O Cruises’ will also arrive in Belfast for dry dock operations.

Published in Shipyards
Jehan Ashmore

About The Author

Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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Shipyards

Afloat will be focusing on news and developments of shipyards with newbuilds taking shape on either slipways and building halls.

The common practice of shipbuilding using modular construction, requires several yards make specific block sections that are towed to a single designated yard and joined together to complete the ship before been launched or floated out.

In addition, outfitting quays is where internal work on electrical and passenger facilities is installed (or upgraded if the ship is already in service). This work may involve newbuilds towed to another specialist yard, before the newbuild is completed as a new ship or of the same class, designed from the shipyard 'in-house' or from a naval architect consultancy. Shipyards also carry out repair and maintenance, overhaul, refit, survey, and conversion, for example, the addition or removal of cabins within a superstructure. All this requires ships to enter graving /dry-docks or floating drydocks, to enable access to the entire vessel out of the water.

Asides from shipbuilding, marine engineering projects such as offshore installations take place and others have diversified in the construction of offshore renewable projects, from wind-turbines and related tower structures. When ships are decommissioned and need to be disposed of, some yards have recycling facilities to segregate materials, though other vessels are run ashore, i.e. 'beached' and broken up there on site. The scrapped metal can be sold and made into other items.