IN JUST 24 hours’ time Captain Ian McNaught, will stand on the bridge of Southampton’s former liner, Queen Elizabeth 2, and give the historic order: “Finished With Engines’’.

Once the message is flashed to the liner’s control room, the huge engines that powered the world’s most famous ship for the past 20 years will fall silent forever.

QE2’s last hours as an ocean liner flying the Golden Lion house flag of Cunard will not be spent at sea but moored alongside Dubai’s port of Mina Rashid after she arrives in her new home tomorrow.

Farewell QE2

A gala dinner, the last ever to be prepared by the ship’s chefs, will follow a cocktail reception on board attended by the liner’s 1,700 passengers.

On Thursday at noon, 3pm local time in Dubai, a Cunard’s flag, which has flown over QE2 since she entered service almost 40 years ago, will be lowered.

A Dubai flag will then be raised to mark the hand-over of the liner to the development company, Nakheel, which paid £50m for the ship.

It was two weeks ago that QE2 was given a tumultuous send-off by the people of Southampton and in the days that followed the Cunarder cruised the Mediterranean before transiting the Suez Canal and entering the Arabian Sea for her last leg of her journey.

A flotilla of local yachts, boats and leisure craft are expected to come out to meet QE2 as she makes her final approaches to Mina Rashid while overhead a super-jumbo A380 Airbus from the Emirates airline is due to make a fly-past.

Nakheel intends to radically change the look of QE2, including a new glass structure that will be positioned in place of the ship’s funnel, which is set to be taken off and used as part of the hotel’s entrance.

Plans for QE2 include her transformation into an ultra-luxury floating hotel where she will form the centre-piece of an exclusive residential, entertainment, marina, and hotel development off the trunk of Palm Jumeirah, the biggest man-made development on the planet. A heritage museum displaying artefacts from QE2 and of local maritime history will also be a prominent feature in the precinct, surrounding QE2, which will also contain a luxurious, West End style theatre capable of staging full-scale productions.