Grozzy From Australia, joined Oct 2007, 155 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (3 years 5 months 6 days 1 hour ago) and read 2614 times:
There are no plans that I know of, and I doubt there will be one again. The days of touring the empire in a ship are long gone.
BTW, a tour of Brittania in Edinburgh is well worth the money
MadameConcorde From San Marino, joined Feb 2007, 10241 posts, RR: 40 Reply 5, posted (3 years 5 months 5 days 23 hours ago) and read 2586 times:
I have an idea. The QE2 is in Dubai doing nothing. Ship is still in very good sailable condition.
Instead of building a new royal yacht, the Crown could buy off the QE2 from Sheikh Mo and turn her into a royal yacht of sorts.
They can have her completely refurbished and when she is not sailing the royals, then she can be a museum in Southampton or elsewhere in the UK and made accessible to us all for visits.
QE2 ruled the waves!
QE2 would make the most outstanding and best possible royal yacht. Why even thinking of having another one?
There was a better way to fly it was called Concorde
If this was 10 years ago, then yes. But with the current economic climate, the taxpayer won't be too happy at the prospect (as we've seen before with the VIP aircraft issue).
Ferengi80 From United Kingdom, joined Mar 2007, 667 posts, RR: 0 Reply 7, posted (3 years 5 months 5 days 16 hours ago) and read 2521 times:
There will never be another Royal Yacht, unless the Royal Family buy one themselves. There is no need for a Royal Yacht now, the Royal family fly everywhere they need to go. Afterall, the idea of the Royal Yacht was to provide transport before the age of aviation.
It was deemed too expensive to keep Britannia in service, especially seeing as air travel has become the norm. When cancelling the replacement of the vessel, the new Labour government argued that the expenditure could not be justified given the other pressures on the defence budget (from which it would be funded and maintained). (Taken from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMY_Britannia)
AF1981 LHR-CDG A380-800 10 July 2010 / AF1980 CDG-LHR A380-800 11 July 2010
GDB From United Kingdom, joined May 2001, 12701 posts, RR: 80 Reply 8, posted (3 years 5 months 5 days 12 hours ago) and read 2494 times:
This was decided in 1997, when Britannia came up for an expensive re-fit.
It was retired without replacement.
Considering any replacement would come from the hard pressed defence budget, well that sort of answers itself.
When Britannia was built in the mid 1950's, part of the justification was that in a war it could be converted into a hospital ship.
When this requirement finally arrived, in 1982 for the Falklands war, it was too old, too small, had no helicopter facilities nor could any be fitted.
So the liner Uganda did the job.
The Royal Yacht's old plant was also incompatible with the fuel used in modern warships by then too.
In it's latter years, the Yacht was increasingly used for trade delegations and the like, to justify it's expensive upkeep.
That did not justify an expensive re-fit nor a replacement however.
It's now a museum ship in Scotland.
Scooter01 From Norway, joined Nov 2006, 1153 posts, RR: 8 Reply 9, posted (3 years 5 months 4 days 9 hours ago) and read 2430 times:
May I introduce the K/S NORGE
Built in 1937 as the "PHILANTE" by Sir Thomas Sophwith. (of aviation fame)
Used by the Royal Navy as a convoy-escort during WW2.
Purchased in 1946 with funds collected by the Norwegian people. After a rebuild in 1948 she was given as a gift to (then) King Haakon 7th.
Today she is still owned by the Royal family and used for their travels in European waters.
She is staffed by conscripts and officers of the Norwegian Navy.
If Queen Elizabeth II should desire a sea-voyage, I'm sure she would be accomodated by her distant nephew,
King Harald V, the current owner...
Here the ship is seen maneuvering to her summer-berth, just outside my office.
Scooter01
[Edited 2009-12-16 15:26:24]
"We all have a girl and her name is nostalgia" - Hemingway
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