Queen Mary Priority Repairs Project

From her first voyage in 1936, the massive Queen Mary set a new standard for luxury transatlantic travel, as passengers enjoyed numerous dining areas, lounges, cocktail bars, and swimming pools.

Now, more than 50 years after her last trip, she remains docked in Long Beach, California, as a floating hotel, attraction, and event venue. Due to her condition, Queen Mary only stays open for limited hours. That’s something the people and the City of Long Beach want to change.

For Queen Mary to fully open, her decades-old safety features require enhancement and repair. In this spirit, the City of Long Beach’s Public Works department recruited Harris to help with their Priority Repairs Project.

Harris provides project management, construction management, and job order contracting (JOC) program support services for each phase of this work.

Core Elements
The Queen Mary Priority Repairs Project is expected to span multiple careers and cost approximately $230 million. That said, Harris has already made significant progress in several areas, including:

• Making critical repairs to the emergency generator
• Installing and providing power and signal distribution to 11 bilge pumps at the lower level of the ship
• Removing lifeboats
• Repairing the bulkhead

To provide power for a boat designed nearly a century ago, the Harris team had to install an emergency generator in the ship’s new bilge pump system and in the ship’s existing emergency panel that services emergency equipment. The team purchased and installed a 500-KVA emergency generator with multiple safety switches and breakers inside a chain link fence enclosure.

Modernizing Queen Mary’s distribution and fire alarm system posed a similar challenge. Not only was her original system outdated, but the newly installed system required a particular logic to activate the pumps to discharge potential water intrusion. The Harris team integrated motor control centers, sensors, a new fire alarm system, power and signal conduits, and conductors—all linked to a modern programmable control device.

Beyond the Blueprints
Our completed work has passed all fire department tests, but much more remains to be done. Up next: repairing the ship’s boiler and heat exchangers system.

Johnny Vallejo, Long Beach’s deputy economic development director, is confident that Queen Mary’s opening to the public for extended periods of time will be an economic boon to the city. “The limited number of tours the city offered last year filled up within hours, if not minutes,” he said. We’ve been proud to work with the City of Long Beach to help ensure the Queen Mary and its hotel will be safe and available for public enjoyment more often in the very near future.