SHIPPING: Hail to the Queen

Early one morning this week, New York’s harbor was a well-planned bedlam of whistles, sirens and bells. Fireboats spouted their best special-occasion cascades. Amid this welcoming todo, the Cunarder Queen Elizabeth, spick & span in a new coat of red, white and black paint, nosed past the Statue of Liberty, headed up the Hudson. At 7:33 a.m., she tied up at Pier 90, ending her maiden commercial voyage across the North Atlantic. Henceforth the 1,031-ft., 83,673-ton Queen Elizabeth will sail weekly between New York and Southampton (the Queen Mary is still being reconverted).

The Queen Elizabeth was launched in the Clyde in 1938. But before she could be fully fitted, war turned her into a troop-carrier. Her wartime passenger total: 811,324. Reconditioning of the world’s biggest liner began last March. In went 21,000 pieces of furniture, ten miles of carpeting, carloads of art works.

Polished and primped from stem to stern, she sailed from Southampton last week with 2,200 paying passengers aboard (fares: first class, $365 and up; tourist, $165). Number one among the notables: U.S.S.R. Foreign Minister V. M. Molotov. At Commodore Sir James Bissett’s invitation, Molotov took the liner’s helm for a few minutes, veered two degrees off course —to the left.

The Queen Elizabeth’s crossing time of four days, 16 hours, 18 minutes, was unspectacular, but her champagne luxury was something to cable home about. Her passengers were amazed by what they could eat, drink and buy in the shops. In the mammoth dining saloon amidships or in the tonier Verandah Grill on the afterdeck, first-class passengers ate sirloin steaks, Timbale de Volaille Périgord, pineapple souffle, coupe Jacques.

The French wines ran from vin blanc at $2 a bottle to Bollinger at $8. The supply of Haig & Haig Scotch was limitless at 50¢ a drink. The Queen Elizabeth’s shops had plenty of pajamas, woolen socks, and suits such as Britons have not seen for years. Out to corner the North Atlantic traffic, Britain had spared no expense nor luxury, even if it came out of the stay-at-homes’ cupboard.