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The RMS Queen Mary – Memories
by John MacFarlane 2012
In 1962 it didn’t take as much to impress young teenagers as it does now. My sister and I encountered the RMS Queen Mary in New York City and were mesmerized by the shear size of the vessel. Later we "donated" fifty cents each (a lot of money for a kid to spend at that time) to the Longshoreman’s Benevolent Fund for the privilege of going on board.
We were able to wander anywhere in the ship with the price of admission – only having to pay attention to the announcement "all ashore who’s going ashore" at the end of the afternoon. Visiting the ship now in her home in California fails to recapture the feel of the vibration of the ship’s engines, and the hustle and bustle of passengers, crew and visitors. I’m glad I spent the price of admission – I’ve never forgotten the experience.
I think this was one of many early experiences that formed the structure for my interest in and love of all things maritime in my life.
Site News: December 21, 2024
The vessel database has been updated and is now holding 94,824 vessel histories (with 16,274 images and 13,929 records of ship wrecks and marine disasters).
Vessel records are currently being reviewed and updated with more than 45,000 processed so far this year (2024).
The mariner and naval biography database has also been updated and now contains 58,599 entries (with 3996 images).
Thanks to Ray Warren who is beginning a long process of filling gaps in the photo record of vessel histories in the database. Ray has been documenting the ships of Vancouver Harbour for more than 60 years.
Thanks to contributor Mike Rydqvist McCammon for the hundreds of photos he has contributed to illustrate British Columbia’s floating heritage.
My very special thanks to our volunteer IT adviser, John Eyre, who (since 2021) has modernized, simplified and improved the update process for the databases into semi–automated processes. His participation has been vital to keeping the Nauticapedia available to our netizens.