Queen Mary 2
Vimar has yet again achieved a milestone in prestige: thousands of lighting points installed on the biggest, newest and most technologically advanced transatlantic cruiser ever to have set sail. the Queen Mary 2, which was launched in early 2004 for the Cunard Company of the Carnival Group.
The Queen Mary 2 is a steel colossus: 345 meters long, 41 meters wide and 74 meters tall. In concrete terms, this means that the Queen Mary 2 is 45 metres longer than the Eiffel Tower laid on its side and as high as a 23 storey building. The engines, on the other hand, boast 154,000 Hp and the generators are capable of meeting the power needs of a town of 300,000 people. The cabins have room for 2620 passengers and the crew of 1253.
The QM2 is designed for use in two ways: as an ocean cruiser, It is far ahead of its competitors, while as a ship of the line it offers absolute safety in any conditions of sea and wind the North Atlantic can throw at it.
The QM2 has a cruise speed of 30 knots, around 56 km/h, and is thus relatively slow, requiring two days more for a crossing, but the energy consumption is far lower: each knot over 20 costs as much as the previous 20 taken together. This is why top speed has been set at 30 knots. In contrast, and for the first time in a passenger ship, the engines are extremely quiet: this has been achieved by housing the engines in gondolas external to the structure, eliminating the transmission components and the vibration and noise they produce.
Despite its enormous size, the QM2 was not built starting from the keel, but in 16 metre transverse sections starting from the centre, which were assembled for welding by a gigantic bridge crane: a total of 4200 workers laboured in teams on the sections, resulting in considerable time savings, always under cover. Once the huge steel structure was completed, the infrastructure technicians and then the decorators set to work: carpenters, glazers and other craftsmen, who clothed the grey steel with wood, mirrors, plaster and bronze reliefs.
The team built a series of restaurants, five swimming pools, gyms and fitness centres, nightclubs and the casino, a library, auditorium and children's play rooms. The ship stands out for its size, which must be sufficient to house over 2500 passengers. Plus all the crew and staff required to run it.
The QM2 certainly features the largest number of lighting points to be found in a single installation: an incredible total of 30,000, with a dozen per person. These units integrate over 60,000 Idea units.
Around 20,000 lighting points are installed in light wall boxes (10,000 2-module units, 6,500 3-module units, 500 4-module units, and 3,000 6-module units; 10,000 of these are wall mounted. These numbers give a rough idea of the extent of the installation and how many functions it has, all essentially installed to provide comfort, and a quality of performance in line with the overall standards of the QM2 with its innovative technology and all-embracing functionality.
The most prestigious areas and common rooms are equipped with grey units with black chrome cast cover plates. This aesthetically pleasing choice makes the most of the versatility of the Idea series, which is available in all models in both grey and white. The units were chosen by the architects to create a chromatic harmony with the dark window frames and the lacquered wood of the seats and tables.
The black chrome cover plates reflect the colour choice for the handrails, handles, flower baskets and other chrome metal installations. In these high visibility areas, the equipment must be fully-featured: many of the lights are dimmer-adjustable to enable the creation of pleasing scenarios, with TV-RD-SAT TV connectors with two outputs, thus enabling reception of both radio and centralized TV broadcasts. The bathrooms have dedicated shaver sockets which use the European and American standard to deliver power at 230 V and 125 V to guarantee operation without damage to the passenger's shaver. Thousands of custom functions have been created for the buttons with special icons to enable the passengers to operate the controls correctly.
These customizations have been done with laser engraving of the button, in a slightly lighter colour, to ensure that the icons are indelible and long-lasting. The use of laser engraving, which does not require the creation of negatives of dies but uses a graphics file instead, is cost effective for small quantities and also offers enormous versatility to the designer.
All other installations use the white Idea range with the elegant white Idea cover plate of the same colour, to allow the lighting points to blend in with the light coloured walls of the smaller rooms for a light. airy look.
Here too the installations are prestigious. The power sockets are standard UK sockets, as well as US, which are those used by the majority of passengers. Each bathroom features a fixed emergency light, which automatically turns on in case of blackout to prevent panic. These are a special version of the Torcia, a miniaturized 2-module device which mounts flush with the wall and is equipped with a 2-hour battery
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