RMS Queen Elizabeth Queen Elizabeth to safely rest on the bed of the Intracoastal Waterway in Ft. Lauderdale harbour (Port Everglades) and remain open, but instead the vessel was towed out of the harbour to Asia to become a floating university. Losing money and forced to close after being declared a fire hazard, this was due to the ship being sold at auction in 1970 to Hong Kong tycoon Tung Chao Yung. Tung, the head of the Orient Overseas Line, intended to convert the vessel into a university for the World Campus Afloat program (later reformed and renamed as Semester at Sea). Following
RMS Queen Elizabeth she sailed to her secret destination. Captain Townley discovered that he was to take the ship directly to New York in the then neutral United States without stopping, or even slowing to drop off the Southampton harbour pilot who had embarked on at Clydebank, and to maintain strict radio silence. Later that day, at the time when she was due to arrive at Southampton, the city was bombed by the Luftwaffe. "Queen Elizabeth" zigzagged across the Atlantic to elude German u-boats and took six days to reach New York at an average speed of 26 knots. In New York she