The RMS Queen Mary 2

Various Locations, Worldwide

Cunard's Queen Mary 2 is a real awe-inspiring transatlantic ocean liner. Designed by a team of British naval architects and constructed in France in 2003 by Chantiers de l'Antique, it is the biggest passenger ship ever built, weighing in at an incredible 148,528 tonnes and measuring 1,132 feet in length. After being christened by Queen Elizabeth II in January 2004, the enormous vessel made its maiden voyage from its home in Southampton to Fort Lauderdale in the USA, later that month.

Those who book a transatlantic crossing or European cruise on the magnificent ship can expect a holiday like no other. The impressive ocean liner epitomises old-world elegance, style and grace whilst offering all of the latest state-of-the-art facilities that the modern traveller requires.

UFO was contracted by Offshore Lighting to replace another company's fibre optics, which had been installed in the ship's exterior 'Queen Mary 2' signage and had become damaged by the sea and harsh weather conditions.

Our team of engineers boarded the vessel at Southampton, en-route to Hamburg for its major internal refit. Whilst at sea the team were able to remove all of the old optics from the signage on either side of the ship's funnel and measure up for the replacement items. The measurements were then emailed to our head office in Scotland where production began immediately.

More than 5,000 fibre tails were produced for use in the harnesses, whilst countless ferrules were custom designed specifically for the project and manufactured on our Star lathe. The finished products were sent directly to the shipyard in Hamburg where the ocean liner was dry docked and ready for the new fibre optics to be fitted.

In total, it took us less than 3 weeks to complete the highly specialist project from start to finish. And once complete, the ship's signage could be seen from 20 miles away thanks to the increased brightness of our fibre optic lighting system.

Our team made the short trip out to Hamburg at the request of marine lighting specialists, Offshore Lighting, who wanted to replace the light sources that illuminate the fibre optics in the funnel and signage on the exterior of the vessel with brighter punchier LED counterparts.

On this occasion our team retrofitted the existing 150w metal halide light sources with our 5500K Sirius LED light sources and enclosed each unit in a new UFO weatherproof IP enclosure. Whilst on-board they also replaced a small number of fibre tails which had incurred heat damage from the metal halide light sources, and removed and cleaned the fascia from the ‘Queen Mary’ lettering.

The work was completed in a matter of days whilst the ship was dry docked during its 6 week long refitting.