Q4 MAY HAVE ROYAL NAME

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31480, 21 September 1967, Page 13

Q4 MAY HAVE ROYAL NAME

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright)

GLASGOW, September 20.

The Q 4 ocean liner—acclaimed as the world’s most modern ship—will be launched by the Queen today at the Clydeside dockyards.

The Queen will reveal the new liner’s name when she launches it this afternoon. The liner weighs 58,000 tons and cost £3om to build.

Bookmakers in Glasgow, quoting odds for Q4's name, place Winston Churchill as the favourite, but there was renewed speculation that the

successor to the transatlantic liners. Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth, would also have a royal name. Princess Margaret became the second favourite name with punters when a late announcement included her as a surprise guest at the launching ceremony. The Cunard Line, the Q 4 s owners, claim a host of superlatives for the new liner, built at the shipyard which produced the Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. Q 4, as the liner has been known during construction, will be the biggest passenger ship to navigate both the Suez and Panama Canals. She will be the biggest passenger liner launched anywhere in the world since the France was built in 1961. Her two six-bladed propellers, powered by three boilers, will make her the fastest twin-screw passenger vessel ever launched.

Computers will control much of the ship’s activities.