CUNARD'S Queen Mary 2 has bid farewell to New York and set sail for her home port of Southampton on her 200th Atlantic crossing.

The liner performed a sail-by of the Statue of Liberty yesterday to mark the start of the historic voyage.

Since entering service in 2004, Cunard estimates that half a million transatlantic passengers have consumed 8.4m cups of tea, 980,000 scones, 481,000 bottles of champagne, 644,000 eggs and 1.7m pints of milk.

In total 22.4m meals have been served on board with more than 600,000 nautical miles sailed.

These figures do not take into account food and drink consumed on the ship's annual world cruise and other sailings.

Queen Mary 2 arrived in Southampton for the first time on Boxing Day 2003.

She was named by the Queen and made her maiden transatlantic crossing to Fort Lauderdale in Florida in January 2004.

The largest, longest, tallest, widest and most expensive liner ever built, she remains the only true ocean liner in service and is the world's fastest passenger ship.