QE2 hits a sandbank on way to her big farewell thousands

THE QE2 ran aground on a sandbank in Southampton Water with 2,700 passengers and crew on board today as the liner arrived for her final voyage.

The 70,000-tonne ship was heading back to her home port from a Mediterranean cruise before heading to Dubai where she is to be turned into a five-star hotel.

Witnesses said the QE2 was blown off course by strong winds and got stuck on the Bramble Bank near Calshot.

Most of the 1,700 passengers on board were asleep and no one is thought to have been injured.

The port authority and coastguards were alerted and five tugs were sent to free the stranded vessel. The liner was eventually pulled free as the tide rose.

A spokesman for Solent Coastguard said they were alerted to the ship being aground at the entrance of Southampton Water at 5.26am. She was pulled off just before 6.10am and pulled into port around an hour late at 7.30.

The spokesman said: "She has been refloated and is under way under her own power and heading back to her berth in Southampton." He added: "She had only partially gone aground, and the tugs pulled her off."

Coastguards said the winds were blowing from the south-west at force seven, or 30mph, at the time of the grounding, with a moderate swell.

A spokesman for the ship's owner, Cunard, said: "No one on board has been injured. A lot of people will have been in bed when it happened and not have noticed. She just touched the bottom. We're not aware of any damage and the day will go ahead as normal."

Tickets for the last voyage sold out in half an hour despite some berths costing more than £28,000 for the 16-day trip.

Thousands of people are preparing to line the route to wave the QE2 off this evening. Police are urging those wanting to see the ship in port to arrive early.

After the QE2 moves off, she will stop for a pre-recorded message from her master, Captain Ian McNaught, to be broadcast on a specially-erected screen in Southampton's Mayfair Park. There will be a flypast and fireworks.

A Tiger Moth aircraft will drop a million poppies over the vessel to mark the 90th anniversary of the Armistice. After a two-minute silence, Prince Philip will speak to crew who travelled on the liner when she was a troop ship in the Falklands War. The QE2 was launched by the Queen on Clydebank, near Glasgow, in 1967. She has sailed around the world 25 times, carried more than 2.5 million passengers, crossed the Atlantic more than 800 times, and travelled nearly six million nautical miles.

Passengers have included the Beatles, Elizabeth Taylor, US astronaut Buzz Aldrin and the Queen.

With the Queen Mary 2 now the Cunard flagship and with other vessels due to join the company's fleet, Cunard announced last year that the QE2 would be sold to the Dubai World company for around £50 million. The QE2 will reach Dubai on 26 November.