Thread: Why Seoul is feminine? Is 'ship' always feminine?

This is from J.G. Ballard's "The wind from nowhere"

Chin in one hand, Maitland leaned against the window, reading the flapping headlines on the newspaper stands.

QUEEN MARY AGROUND NEAR CHERBOURG
High Winds Hamper Rescue Launches

A good number of would-be passengers who should have picked up the liner at Southampton had been at the airport, Maitland remembered, but she had been over a week late on her live-day crossing of the Atlantic, having met tremendous seas headwinds like a wall of steel. If they were actually trying to take off passengers, it looked as if the great ship was in serious trouble.

Donald Maitland is a male character, who failed to depart from the London airport to Canada due to the incredible wind which have stopped all the flights. The question is what is "she" referring to: an airplane, the ferry "Queen Mary", the airport as a whole thing, Southampton port or anything else?