THE master mariner who was known in the world of shipping as Mr QE2, Captain Bob Arnott, has died at the age of 92.

Captain Arnot retired in 1985 when he was the longest serving master of Queen Elizabeth 2 and although didn’t live locally spent most of his career sailing out of Southampton.

During 45 years at sea Captain Arnott also served on other great Cunarders, but on retirement he admitted to preferring QE2, a liner he joined as first chief officer when she entered service in 1969.

As the ship’s master, he made the Atlantic crossing on hundreds of occasions, shook millions of passengers’ hands and travelled more than half a million miles.

A few years before he retired Captain Arnott wrote an autobiography, Captain of the Queen, in which he recalled that, in a single trip he might easily have to play host to royalty, car salesmen and newly-weds who had saved for many months for their honeymoon voyage.

That the masters of transatlantic liners have to be superb seamen goes without sailing but Captain Arnott said there was also a need for patience and tact, not to mention a cast-iron constitution.

Ironically, Captain Arnott, who began his sea career as a 16-year-old midshipman with the Blue Funnel Line, learned these qualities serving under more autocratic masters.

As a third officer on the original Queen Mary in the early 1950s it was his regular job on Saturday afternoons to pick up the football results over the radio for his captain, whose temper was closely linked to the fortunes of the team he supported. If the side lost, the young Bob Arnott would attempt to avoid him for hours.

in the hope that his anticipation of the next match would overcome any earlier disappointments.

In his book Captain Arnott talked about a “sixth sense”, which he believed masters on the bridge used as well sophisticated navigation equipment.

The author recalled how one of his former skippers brought the 22,000-ton Carinthia safely into port despite fog so thick all other vessels had stopped running.

In another incident Captain Arnott was forced to leave his dinner table for the bridge as QE2 battled her way through a fierce mid-Atlantic storm.

As he made his way across the violent bucking restaurant, he nonchalantly helped passengers back on their feet from the floor.

Back in 1977, Captain Arnott was the guest of honour on television’s long running programme “This is Your Life” when he was reminded how he and another Cunard master, Captain Peter Jackson first met during the Second World War.

Captain Arnott was on board a Blue Funnel ship which went to the rescue of the torpedoed merchantman, Mentor, in the Gulf of Mexico. And it was Captain Arnott who helped aboard one of the rescued crew members, Peter Jackson, who was later to become a firm friend and fellow captain with Cunard.

Surrounded by his family, plus friends, who included showbiz personalities, singer Moira Anderson and band leader, Joe Loss,Captain Arnott told Eamonn Andrews, the host of programme, of the co-incidence while he was on wartime service aboard the warship, Ajax, in the Indian Ocean. Walking in Calcutta he met his father, a serving officer in the RAF, who had no idea where his son was until that moment.