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The Royal Yacht Britannia Has a Fascinating History—Here's Everything You Should Know

It doesn't get more majestic than Queen Elizabeth II's yacht.

Seventy years ago, the Britannia began its journey as the royal yacht for Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family of the United Kingdom. Over the next 44 years she’d travel more than a million nautical miles and, in all her glamour and old world elegance, served as a residence that welcomed state visits from all over the world and family holidays alike. Then and now, she was and is a majestic symbol of the British Commonwealth and the reign of Queen Elizabeth II .

“Britannia is special for a number of reasons,” Prince Phillip once said. “Almost every previous sovereign has been responsible for building a church, a castle, a palace or just a house. The only comparable structure in the present reign is Britannia. As such she is a splendid example of contemporary British design and technology.”

Although she retired from service in 1997, today the Britannia, one of many of the world's grandest yachts , is docked in Edinburgh, where she is open as a visitors’ attraction and host of private events. Below we give you all the Royal Yacht Britannia facts you might want to know, from who owns the yacht now to why she was decommissioned to how fast she is to how to get tickets to visit. Britannia was, after all, the one place the queen said she could “truly relax,” so why not see why for yourself?

Royal Yacht Britania Facts and History

On February 4, 1952, John Brown & Co shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, received the order from the Admiralty to build a new Royal Yacht to travel the globe and double as a hospital ship in times of war, according to the royal yacht's website . King George VI passed away two days after, sadly, and so on April 16, 1953, the newly crowned Queen Elizabeth II announced the yacht’s new name as the ship was revealed.

"I name this ship Britannia,” she said. “I wish success to her and all who sail in her." Britannia was commissioned into the Royal Navy in January 1954 and by April of that year sailed into her first overseas port: Grand Harbour, Malta.

The queen and The Duke of Edinburgh worked with interior designer Sir Hugh Casson for the ship to serve as both a functional Royal Navy vessel and an elegant royal residence. Queen Elizabeth II selected deep blue for Britannia’s hull, instead of the more traditional black. Its Naval crew included 220 Yachtsmen, 20 officers, and three season officers—plus a Royal Marines Band of 26 men during Royal Tours.

All of them might have had to change uniform up to six times a day, so the laundry service on board worked nonstop. The yacht also engaged in British overseas trade missions known as Sea Days and made an estimated £3 billion for the Exchequer between 1991 and 1995 alone.

The ship’s wheel was taken from King Edward VII’s racing yacht, also named Britannia, according to Boat International , and the 126-meter ship could reach speeds of 22.75 knots, or a seagoing cruising speed of 21 knots, according to Super Yacht Times . Other fun facts: The yacht could produce her own fresh water from sea water, and shouting was forbidden aboard to preserve tranquility, favoring hand signals for Naval orders instead.

Over the next 44 years, the Britannia would sail the equivalent of once around the world for each year, in total visiting 600 ports in 135 countries. Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones were the first of four couples to honeymoon on the ship in 1960, gifting them all privacy to sail to secluded locations. Prince Charles and Princess Diana followed in 1981 on the Mediterranean as well as Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips before them in 1973 in the Caribbean and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson in 1986 in the Azores.

For family vacations aboard the ship, games, treasure hunts, plays, and picnics were organized, and on warm days the children could play in an inflatable paddling pool on the Verandah Deck.

In the Sun Lounge, the queen especially enjoyed taking breakfast and afternoon tea with views through large picture windows, a space you can see replicated in the TV show The Crown. Although no filming took place on board the Britannia for the show, researchers ensured scenes aboard it were accurate. In the queen’s bedroom, the resemblance is seen down to the decorative wall light fittings and embroidered silk panel above her bed that had been specially commissioned.

In 1997, the ship was decommissioned after the government decided the costs to refit it would be too great. On its final day in her service that followed a farewell tour around the U.K., the queen openly wept as the Band of HM Royal Marines played "Highland Cathedral."

"Looking back over 44 years we can all reflect with pride and gratitude upon this great ship which has served the country, the Royal Navy and my family with such distinction," Queen Elizabeth II said. All clocks on the ship stopped at 15:01, the exact time the Queen disembarked from the yacht for the final time, and they would remain at that time until the present.

How to Tour the Royal Yacht Britania

Today the yacht is owned by Royal Yacht Britannia Trus t, and all revenue it generates goes to the yacht’s maintenance and preservation. Ticketed entry allows you to step into state rooms like the Sun Lounge, the State Dining Room and State Drawing Room, in addition to the working side of the ship in the Crew’s Quarters, Laundry and gleaming Engine Room. Along the way you will see original artifacts from the shop—95 percent of which is on loan from The Royal Collection.

How to Visit the Royal Britania

You can visit the Britannia any day of the year on Edinburgh’s waterfront. Hours vary by season, and you can find them listed and purchase tickets on the yacht’s website . Private tours are also available, and you can visit the Royal Deck Tearoom, where the Royal Family hosted cocktail parties and receptions, for drinks, meals and scones. Additionally, the Britannia hosts special ticketed events for New Year’s and other occasions, and event spaces can be booked as well.

While you are in Edinburgh, you can also stay on the Fingal , a neighboring yacht-turned-floating-hotel, which is a seven-minute walk from the Britannia, and dine at its Lighthouse Restaurant & Bar, which serves breakfast, afternoon tea, dinner, and cocktails.

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The Royal Yacht Britannia, Ocean Drive, Leith, Edinburgh EH6 6JJ

Tel: 0131 555 5566 Email us: [email protected]

The Royal Yacht Britannia is scheduled to be closed 9 & 10 October for planned building works out with our control

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A Floating Palace

Britannia was launched from the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland, on 16 April, 1953. For over 44 years the Royal Yacht served the Royal Family, travelling more than a million nautical miles to become one of the most famous ships in the world. To Queen Elizabeth II, Britannia provided the perfect Royal residence for glittering state visits, official receptions, Royal honeymoons a nd relaxing family holidays. For Great Britain, she was a majestic symbol of the Commonwealth and a proud ambassador  generating billions of pounds in trade deals. For the Royal Family and 220 dedicated crew of Royal Yachtsmen, she was home.

Today, Britannia is a five-star visitor attraction and exclusive evening events venue in Edinburgh.

Start at the Bridge, explore the State Apartments, Crew's Quarters and finish at the Engine Room.

View The Royal Residence

Discover why Britannia was so special for Queen Elizabeth II and the Royal Family.

Glance Below Decks

Find out about life on the ocean wave for the crew, the Royal Yachtsmen, also know as the ‘Yotties’.

The Britannia's Timeline

Britannia holds a special place in maritime history as the last in a long line of Royal Yachts.

Visiting Britannia

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The Royal Yacht Britannia is scheduled to be closed 9 & 10 October for planned building works out with our control.

Click on the Visit page  for more information before you visit.

Step aboard to enjoy a great day out!

Fingal Hotel

Get away from the everyday aboard Britannia’s sister ship, Fingal.  Extend your visit with a stay in one of Fingal’s luxurious cabins, your own oasis by the sea. 

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The Royal Yacht Britannia : A History of Queen Elizabeth II’s Favorite Palace

The christening of The Royal Yacht Britannia serves as a cheeky season opener to  The Crown . Black-and-white Pathé News–style footage shows a soon-to-be-crowned Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) cheered on by shipbuilders as she launches her new 412-foot yacht. “I hope that this brand-new vessel, like your brand-new queen, will prove to be dependable and constant. Capable of weathering any storm,” she says about the royal replacement for the  Victoria and Albert III . By the series’ season finale, set 44 years later, both the sovereign and the floating palace she christened  Britannia will have hit rough seas—the cost of repairing the creaky old vessel and the modern role of the monarchy both in question. Ultimately, the yacht that undertook 968 official voyages all over the world, hosting dignitaries—including 13 US presidents—at receptions and banquets, was dry-docked near Edinburgh, Scotland, where it continues to be a popular tourist attraction. Here are some of the most buoyant facts about the palace the Queen famously said was “the one place where I can truly relax.”

The sun room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1981. 

In a nod to the country’s post-war austerity, Elizabeth scaled back the design of the ship that her father, King George VI, had commissioned just two days before he died. Rather than following the opulent plan laid out by the Scottish firm McInnes Gardner & Partners, she opted for the understated elegance envisioned by architect Sir Hugh Casson, who described “running a lawn mower over the Louis XVIl adornments” in favor of simple white walls, lilac-gray carpeting, and “a bit of gilding in grand places.” Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Phillip, were said to have personally chosen the furniture—much of it, including linens, recycled from the  Victoria and Albert —fabrics (florals, chintz, toile), and paintings. 

Prince Charles and Princess Diana on board the Royal Yacht Britannia as they prepare to depart on their honeymoon cruise in 1981.

As a former Royal Navy Commander, Prince Phillip also saw to the ship’s technical details, and his Bluebottle racing yacht inspired the Britannia ’s navy-hued hull. Outer decks were made of two-inch Burmese teak. The steering wheel was reclaimed from Britannia ’s namesake, King Edward VII’s 1893 racing yacht; a wheelhouse wheel came from George V’s racing yacht; and a gold-and-white binnacle (housing the ship’s compass) was salvaged from King George III’s yacht and installed on the Veranda deck. Fittings from former royal ships were also reused. 

The drawing room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1978. 

The 4,000-ton yacht had a crew of 220 Royal Yachtsmen who lived on board, about 45 household staff, and occasionally a 26-member Royal Marine embarked to entertain dignitaries. The monarch often welcomed guests from the ship’s grand staircase. (Stairs leading from the Veranda to the Royal deck were sometimes transformed into a water slide for the kids.)  Britannia ’s apartments were designed like those of a first-class ocean liner. A 56-seat state dining room, where many of the gifts given to the monarch (a wood-carved shark from Pitcairn Island, a bejeweled gold statue from Bangkok) were displayed, was the scene of formal dinners with guests such as Sir Winston Churchill, Frank Sinatra, Nelson Mandela, and Bill and Hillary Clinton. More intimate gatherings were held in the Queen’s official reception room, a smaller state drawing room with floral upholstered pieces, simple wood tables, an electric fireplace, and a Welmar baby grand piano bolted to the deck—played by everyone from Sir Noël Coward to Princesses Diana and Margaret. The teak-clad sun lounge, with rattan furniture and a toile loveseat, was Elizabeth’s favorite place—where she had her breakfast, afternoon tea, and also enjoyed her favorite Dubonnet and gin cocktails.

The Queen’s sitting room on the Royal Yacht Britannia as photographed in 1981. 

A ship elevator reserved for royal use moved between the Upper and Shelter Decks. The latter is where four Royal Apartments (bedrooms), including the Queen and Prince Phillip’s connecting compartments, were located. Hers featured florals, his had red accents. Elizabeth’s understated Upper Deck private sitting room, done in pastels and neutrals, served as the office where she conducted state business. Phillip used his sitting room, with its wood desk facing a model of his first command, the HMS Magpie , as his study. Below deck there was a wine cellar, as well as a cargo hold that could carry a barge, speed- and sailboats, plus a royal Range Rover and Rolls-Royce. The yacht could also be converted into a hospital (though it never was).

The Queen shed a tear at the decommissioning ceremony for thye Royal Yacht Britannia.

As depicted in  The Crown, Britannia ’s final official trip was to Hong Kong in 1997, where Prince Charles attended the handover of the territory to China. By then, Prime Minister Tony Blair’s administration was complaining that the £11 million a year needed to keep the boat afloat couldn’t be justified. With Queen Elizabeth, Prince Phillip, and all of their children in attendance,  Britannia was decommissioned at a ceremony in Portsmouth, England on December 11, 1997, with the monarch seen wiping away a tear. The yacht, now docked in Leith, Scotland, is open to the public as a museum and events space. (Prior to their wedding, Princess Anne and Mark Phillips’s daughter Zara Phillips and her fiancé Mike Tindall had a celebration there.) Visitors will note that every clock on board reads 3:01, the exact time the Queen disembarked her beloved  Britannia for the final time on that December day.

10 surprising facts about the Royal Yacht Britannia, one of the Queen's favorite homes, featured on 'The Crown'

• The Royal Yacht Britannia was the royal family's private yacht from 1953 to 1997.
• The Queen once said that "Britannia is the one place where I can truly relax."
• The ship has made several appearances in Netflix's "The Crown," including season five.

The Royal Yacht Britannia served as the royal family's private yacht from 1953 to 1997. The Queen shed a rare public tear when it was decommissioned.

The first episode of season five of Netflix's "The Crown" flashes back to 1954, when Queen Elizabeth christened the Royal Yacht Britannia, and shows the royal family spending time aboard the luxurious ship.

Later on in the episode, when asked if Balmoral is her favorite home, Imelda Staunton's Queen Elizabeth replies, "There is another that's even more special to me," alluding to the Royal Yacht being her favorite.

Despite the Queen's fondness for the Britannia, the Labour government decided to decommission it in 1997 due to its high operation cost of £11 million each year, Reuters reported . That's equivalent to about $23 million today.

At the decommissioning ceremony, the Queen shed a rare public tear .

Shouting was forbidden on the Royal Yacht Britannia.

Officers wore gym shoes to stay silent near areas where the royal family ate and slept, according to the yacht's official website .

Children were assigned an officer known as a "sea daddy" to look over them while onboard.

"Sea daddies" kept royal children entertained with activities like treasure hunts and water fights.

There was a room aboard the ship called the "Jelly Room" that existed for the sole purpose of storing royal children's jellies, a gelatin dessert that Americans might call "Jell-O."

In addition to the chilled "Jelly Room," the yacht had a total of three galley kitchens where chefs from Buckingham Palace prepared meals.

The State Dining Room tables, which could seat 56 people, took three hours to set.

The location of each utensil was measured meticulously with a ruler, according to the book " Royal Transport: An Inside Look at the History of Royal Travel " by Peter Pigott.

All of the clocks onboard the Royal Yacht Britannia are stopped at 3:01 pm.

The clocks are frozen at the time the Queen stepped off the ship for the last time during its decommissioning ceremony in December 1997.

The ship had a full-time staff of more than 240 yachtsmen, known as "yotties."

The Royal Yacht Britannia cost an estimated $15 million to operate each year, Reuters reported .

The "yotties" had a daily ration of rum until the 1970s.

Yotties carried out a range of duties , including scrubbing the decks, polishing silverware, arranging flowers, and diving beneath the ship to search the seabed.

The former royal yachtsmen reunite annually to help maintain the ship.

Founded in 1989, the Association of Royal Yachtsmen organizes reunions and an annual dinner and dance.

With its many royal family vacations and official tours, the yacht logged over one million miles, the equivalent of one trip around the world for each of its 44 years at sea.

The ship docked at over 600 ports in 135 countries .

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HMS Britannia: 10 facts about Queen Elizabeth's former royal yacht

From humanitarian missions to hosting royal honeymoons, the HMS Britannia has a fascinating history serving the British Royal Family for over four decades. When she was decommissioned in 1997, Queen Elizabeth II shed a tear in a rare display of emotion. The occasion marked the end of long succession for royal yachts dating back to the reign of Charles II. As the country prepares to celebrate the Queen’s diamond jubilee, we remember her beloved Britannia .

1. Britannia was launched in 1953

Britannia was commissioned by Queen Elizabeth II following the death of her father and was launched from John Brown & Co. Ltd - the shipyard that built the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary cruise liners - in 1953. However, there was to be no traditional Champagne-smashing against her bow. In a post-war Britain, Champagne was considered too extravagant so instead, a bottle of Empire wine was selected to do the honours at her official launch ceremony.

2. There are three masts on board

Unlike her predecessors, Britannia possessed a more modern profile with a clipper bow and cruiser stern. The ship was designed with three masts: a 41-metre foremast, a  42-metre mainmast, and 36 metre mizzenmast. The last six metres of the main mast were placed on a hinge so she could pass under bridges.

3. Britannia logged over one million nautical miles

Between family vacations and official tours, Britannia logged over one million nautical miles, which roughly equates to one trip around the world for each of her 44 years in service.

4. The wheel was inherited

The ship’s wheel was taken from King Edward VII’s racing yacht, a 37-metre gaff-rigged cutter also named Britannia . She was a near sistership to Valkyrie II which challenged for the 1893 America's Cup, and won over 230 races in her lifetime. At the end of her life she was stripped of her spars and fittings - the wheel was saved and fitted on Britannia

5. The engine room was hyper-clean

The engine room was hyper-clean  Rumour has it that the engine room on Britannia was kept in such pristine condition that any visitors were made to wipe their feet on a door mat before entering.

6. Royal honeymoons were hosted on board

A number of royal couples chose to spend their honeymoons on Britannia given its privacy and security. Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones started the trend with a six-week sail between Mustique, Trinidad and Antigua, followed by Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, and Princess Diana and Prince Charles. The royal apartments were located on the shelter deck with access to a large veranda.

7. There were more than 200 crew on board

During royal tours, Britannia was manned by 220 yachtsmen, 21 officers and three season officers and a Royal Marine band of 26 on royal tours. Up until the 1970s, the crew had a daily ration of rum and she was the last Royal Navy vessel to have the crew sleep in hammocks.

8. Ready for war

Britannia was designed to be converted into a hospital ship in times of war. Although she was never used in this capacity, she did assist in the evacuation of refugees during the South Yemen civil war. The drawing room was used as a temporary dormitory for the evacuees.

9. The golden rivet

It was common for officers to send junior crew off on a fool’s errand to search for a single "golden rivet". It became a right of passage and engrained in maritime folklore. During a state visit, so the story goes, the Queen had caught wind of this elusive rivet and was keen to see it for herself, so the crew found some gold leaf and hastily created a golden rivet to present to Her Majesty.

10. Decomission

HMS Britannia was officially retired from royal service in 1997. Britannia  is now permanently berthed in Edinburgh and has been converted into a museum. To this day, all the clocks on board remained stopped on 3.01pm which is the exact time the Queen last disembarked the vessel.

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Everything you need to know about Queen Elizabeth’s Yacht Britannia

HMY Britannia by Tower Bridge. Credit: Lynda Poulter via Wikimedia Commons.

In service from 1954 until 1997, HMY Britannia is the former royal yacht of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. She was the 83rd such vessel since King Charles II acceded to the British throne in 1660 and had HMY Mary built for him by the Dutch East India Company, and the second royal yacht to bear the name, the first being a racing cutter built for the Prince of Wales in 1893.

During her 43-year career, the yacht travelled more than a million nautical miles around the globe. Today, she is an award-winning visitor attraction and evening events venue permanently berthed at Ocean Terminal, Leith, in Edinburgh.

HMY Britannia was built in Scotland at the shipyard of John Brown & Co. Ltd. in Clydebank, West Dumbartonshire. It was launched by the Queen on 16 April 1953 and commissioned on 11 January 1954.

She sailed on her maiden voyage from Portsmouth to Grand Harbour, Malta, on 14 April 1954, carrying Prince Charles and Princess Anne to Malta, to Malta in order for them to meet their parents at the end of the royal couple’s Commonwealth Tour.

On 20 July 1959,  Britannia  sailed the newly opened Saint Lawrence Seaway en route to Chicago, where she docked, making the Queen the first Canadian monarch to visit the city. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aboard  Britannia  for part of this cruise; Presidents Ford, Reagan and Clinton were subsequently welcomed aboard the yacht.

Britannia  was designed to be converted into a hospital ship in time of war, with space for an estimated 200 patients. Although the ship was never used in this capacity, as she sailed down the Red Sea in January 1986, en route to Australia, she was asked to play the equally challenging role of rescue ship, to evacuate British nationals and others trapped in South Yemen, where civil war had broken out. Moreover, in the event of nuclear war, Britannia was to be used as a refuge and base of operations for the Queen. The plan, codenamed “Python system”, would have had the ship located on the northwest coast of Scotland in sea lochs with Her Majesty, the Duke of Edinburgh, and the Home Secretary safely on board.

The royal yacht played host to four royal honeymoons: Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong-Jones visited the West Indies in 1960; Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips also chose the Caribbean in 1973; Prince Charles and Princess Diana travelled around the Mediterranean in 1981 and finally the Duke and Duchess of York visited the Azores in 1986. Most recently, Zara Phillips and Mike Tindall held their pre-wedding reception on board the yacht in July 2011.

The State Drawing Room. Credit: Marianna Bozzoli.

Britannia ’s last foreign mission was to Hong Kong for the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to the People’s Republic of China on 1 July 1997.  The ship set sail for Hong Kong in January and served to escort British Governor Christopher Patten and the Prince of Wales back to the UK.

In 1997, the Conservative government committed itself to replacing the Royal Yacht if re-elected, while the Labour Party refused to disclose its plans for the vessel. After Tony Blair’s Labour won the general election in May 1997, it announced the vessel was to be retired and no replacement would be built. The previous government had argued that the cost was justified by its role in foreign policy and promoting British interests abroad.

The Queen has since chartered the MV Hebridian Princess , a private charter cruise ship, on two separate occasions for family trips around the Scottish islands.

When HMY Britannia would come into port, blowing its foghorns, the Queen herself would reportedly imitate the foghorn noise, much to the amusement of anyone in earshot. Then she and the Duke of Edinburgh would travel ashore on the royal barge, built in 1964 to replace to previous one, which had originally belonged to the royal yacht Victoria and Albert III .

Unlike most ships, Britannia was the only ships in the world where the captain was always an Admiral.  The crew were volunteers from the Royal Navy, officers were appointed for a period of two years, while enlisted crew (known as “yachtsmen”) served for one-year periods, after which they could be admitted to “The Permanent Royal Yacht Service”.  If accepted the Royal Yachtsmen were permitted to serve until they left the Royal Yacht Service or were expelled for medical or disciplinary reasons.  An attachment of Royal Marines would also be stationed on the yacht when the Royal Family was present. Service on the royal yacht attracted no extra pay, allowances or leave.

Everything was done to preserve the Royal Family’s tranquillity: most orders were not given verbally, but by hand signal; soft-soled plimsolls were worn and any work near the royal apartments had to be completed by 8.00AM.

The Queen’s Bedroom. Credit: Marianna Bozzoli.

HMY Britannia was the last ship in the Royal Navy to have hammocks in sailors’ quarters.

During her career as Royal Yacht,  Britannia  conveyed the Queen, other members of the Royal Family and various dignitaries on 696 foreign visits and 272 visits in British waters. In this time,  Britannia  steamed 1,087,623 nautical miles (2,014,278 km).

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The Story Behind the Royal Family's Yacht, Britannia

The ship hosted four royal honeymoons in its 44 years of service.

The royal family has a long history of seafaring—the first official royal yacht was the HMY Mary (HMY stands for His or Her Majesty's Yacht) , gifted to Charles II by the Dutch in 1660. In fact, over the centuries the monarchy has utilized 83 royal yachts, including the most recent, the HMY Britannia .

Often referred to as the last royal yacht, the Britannia was decommissioned in 1997, and despite some efforts , there are no signs of a new one in the near future. Though its seafaring days may be behind it (the ship now serves as a tourist attraction in Edinburgh, Scotland), the Britannia remains an important artifact and a peek behind the curtain of royal life—it even garnered a prominent place in the fifth season of The Crown . Below, a few of its most notable moments throughout history.

It was the first royal yacht designed for ocean travel.

The ship was built by John Brown & Co at the same shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland in the same location the famous ocean liners the Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary were constructed. With 12,000 horsepower, the ship could travel at a maximum 22.5 knots (approximately 25 miles per hour), ideal for ocean-going diplomacy. Prior to its launch in 1953, the royal family used ships from the Royal Navy or even passenger liners for the overseas portions of the royal tour.

In its 44 years of service, the HMY Britannia traveled around 1.1 million miles.

It was commissioned just two days before the death of King George VI.

The King was already in failing health by the time the designs for the HMY Britannia were submitted, and the hope was that traveling might help alleviate some of his symptoms. However, just two days after the John Brown shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland received the order the King passed away on February 6, 1952.

It would take just over a year for the ship to be completed, during which time its name remained a secret—it wasn't announced until the ship's official launch in April of 1953, less than two months before the Queen's coronation . Elizabeth cracked a bottle of English wine (in the post-war era, champagne was considered too extravagant for the launch of a ship) and announced, "I name this ship Britannia … I wish success to her and all who sail in her."

It was created to double as a hospital.

When Britannia was first envisioned, less than a decade after the end of World War II, the designers sought to make it as functional as possible, crafting a space that could be converted from an ocean-going royal residence to a seafaring hospital during any possible future wartime. The main veranda was laid out and re-enforced so that it could support a helicopter landing and the laundry was made much larger than on a standard naval vessel to accommodate the potential patients. Though the ship was never actually put to that purpose, it was pressed into service on a rescue mission to help evacuate European nationals from South Yemen in 1986.

The ship was home to a lot of history.

Long before it became a floating museum, the Britannia had an eye for history. The gold and white binnacle housed on the ship's veranda deck was originally part of the HMY Royal George , a royal yacht that served Queen Victoria . Likewise, some of the bed linens used by Queen Elizabeth aboard the vessel were originally made for Victoria's bed for one of the previous royal yachts.

Britannia's steering wheel was lifted from her namesake, the racing yacht HMY Britannia , built in 1893 for King Edward VII .

It was redesigned to be less opulent.

Despite the sense of luxury that the term "royal yacht" inspires, the Queen and Prince Philip were actually concerned when they began overseeing the project in 1952 that the original interior design plans by the design firm McInnes Gardner & Partners were too lavish for a country still recovering from the war. The interiors were ultimately redesigned by Sir Hugh Casson and received very minimal updates throughout her 44 years of service.

But it still had homey touches—by royal standards.

Suffice to say that even low-key royal living is a fairly high class. In addition to the 56-seat State Dining Room, which hosted luminaries including Winston Churchill, Noel Coward, Nelson Mandela, and multiple US Presidents, the ship also sported a formal staircase where the Queen would greet guests, separate bedrooms and sitting rooms for both Her Majesty and the Duke of Edinburgh, and a phone system designed to match the unique configurations of Buckingham Palace's telephones.

In the early years of the Britannia's life it was also home to the Queen's Rolls-Royce Phantom V which was hoisted and lowered from a special garage compartment at port so that the Queen could drive her own car at each location. The space was ever so slightly too small, forcing the bumpers to be removed in order to get it into the garage without damage and then refitted when the car was removed. Ultimately Elizabeth began using cars provided for her at port instead and the garage was converted into a storage area for beer.

The steering crew couldn't see where they were going.

Life on board the HMY Britannia was far from typical for her crew. To begin with, due to the prestige and pressure of the position, the commanding officer of the royal yacht was always a flag officer, most commonly a Rear Admiral, although the first two to serve were Vice Admirals, and Britannia 's final CO was a Commodore.

While working, the crew reportedly used hand signals to communicate rather than shouting orders, in order to maintain a sense of quiet and calm for the royal residents. It was also the last ship in the royal navy where the crew members slept in hammocks, a practice that they maintained until 1973.

Perhaps the most unusual element of the ship's functioning, though, was the steering. While on most ships, the steering wheel sits on the bridge, overlooking the front of the vessel, Britannia 's was on the deck below, in the wheelhouse, which meant that the yachtsmen who were actually doing the steering couldn't see where they were going. The crew got around this rather surprising pitfall by using voice pipes from the bridge to confer navigational orders.

It was a royal honeymoon essential.

No fewer than four royal couples celebrated their honeymoons in the HMY Britannia 's honeymoon suite (the only room onboard with a double bed.)

Princess Margaret started the tradition in 1960 for her Caribbean honeymoon with Anthony Armstrong-Jones , a quiet, formal affair where dinners were taken in full evening dress every night. Things didn't go quite as smoothly for Princess Anne on her honeymoon with Captain Mark Phillips in 1973—storms and 20-foot waves left the couple stricken with seasickness for the first week of their Caribbean cruise. Prince Charles and Princess Diana famously spent their 1981 honeymoon on a Mediterranean cruise aboard the yacht. The crew managed to duck the press so efficiently they garnered the nickname "the ghost ship." The final royal honeymoon aboard the Britannia was taken by Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson , Duchess of York in 1986 when the couple traveled around the Azores.

And a family vacation spot.

In addition to her diplomatic duties on royal tours and her service as a post-wedding retreat, the Britannia was also a vessel for family vacations. During the summer months, the royal family would often take off on what became known as the Western Isles tour, cruising around the western isles of Scotland. During the trip, the family would play games and have barbecues on the islands. The stairway off of the veranda was sometimes even converted into a waterslide for the younger royals. The tour often included a stop off at the Castle of Mey to visit the Queen Mother, then making berth in Aberdeen so that the Queen could travel to her favorite summer home, Balmoral .

The Queen openly wept when HMY Britannia was decommissioned in 1997.

With so many memories around the yacht, it's not hard to understand why the decommissioning of the Britannia was upsetting for the royal family. Though plans were initially drawn up for a replacement yacht, the government ultimately determined not to fund the effort. After the Queen officially took her leave of it in 1997, the ship was placed in the port of Leith in Scotland where it serves as a floating museum and events venue . All of the clocks on board remain stopped at 3:01, the exact time that Her Majesty disembarked for the last time.

It was used for a reception for Zara Phillips before her wedding.

Though it's no longer used as their private vessel, the Britannia 's connection to the royal family didn't end in 1997. In 2011 on the night before her wedding, the Queen's oldest granddaughter Zara Phillips contracted the ship for a reception. Though her grandmother wasn't in attendance Zara celebrated her upcoming marriage to Mike Tindall onboard along with her mother and her cousins Prince Harry, Prince William and Kate, Princess Eugenie, and Princess Beatrice.

Lauren Hubbard is a freelance writer and Town & Country contributor who covers beauty, shopping, entertainment, travel, home decor, wine, and cocktails.

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Where is the Royal Yacht Britannia and why was it decommissioned?

Queen Elizabeth’s farewell to the Royal Yacht in 1997 was one of the only occasions in her 70-year-reign that Her Majesty publicly shed a tear.

Almost 25 years ago, HMY Britannia left Portsmouth for a farewell tour around the UK . It went to six major ports across the UK, including Glasgow.

Why was the Royal Yacht Britannia decommissioned and where is it today?

Why was it decommissioned?

The Royal Yacht was decommissioned in 1994 by John Major’s Government because “the costs were too great”, according to the official website.

The decision was made after the Royal Yacht was used for a long and successful journey spanning 44 years and travelling more than one million miles across the globe.

The issue of a new royal yacht became a political issue in the run-up to the 1997 General Election, when the new Labour Government came into power.

After the election, Tony Blair’s Government confirmed in October 1997 there would be no replacement for Britannia.

It marked the end of a long tradition of British royal yachts, dating back to 1660 and the reign of Charles II.

Where is the HMY Britannia?

Britannia is permanently berthed at Ocean Terminal, Leith, in Edinburgh, Scotland .

Today, the Royal yacht is open to curious visitors and welcomes more than 300,000 visits each year.

Britannia was launched in 1953 from the John Brown and Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland .

Its purpose was to serve the Royal Family and it was the first to be built with complete ocean-going capacity, designed as a royal residence to entertain guests around the world.

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For more than 44 years, it travelled more than one million miles with Her Majesty for state visits, official receptions, royal honeymoons, and relaxing family holidays.

Britannia quickly became one of the most famous ships in the world and now stands as a majestic symbol of Great Britain.

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• What Is Cinema?

The Crown : Remembering Queen Elizabeth’s Floating Palace

The Crown ’s long-awaited fifth season opens with a surprise flashback to Queen Elizabeth, played by Claire Foy , christening the Royal Yacht Britannia to cheers of jubilation in 1954, the year after she was coronated at the age of 27. The season premiere, “Queen Victoria Syndrome,” then jumps forward almost four decades to introduce the franchise’s latest iteration of the aging monarch, played by Imelda Staunton, shortly after she was called “irrelevant, old, expensive, and out-of-touch” by her once-adoring constituents in 1991. How far the crown has fallen in favorability. 

Facing her advancing years, her nation’s yearning for modernity, and a global recession—not to mention a slew of forthcoming scandals involving her family members—this new chapter will not be a cheery one for our queen, the season premiere portends. And her first heartbreak abruptly arrives in the form of the Royal Yacht Britannia, which—with its operational price tag of about  $18 million a year, and its need for expensive improvements—seems simply too lavish and impractical an expense for the public to keep footing.

Nevertheless, the queen makes a plea in an audience with Prime Minister John Major ( Jonny Lee Miller ) for additional financing. “All of my palaces were inherited,” the queen explains, in one of the least relatable sentences the character has ever uttered. “They all bear the stamp of my predecessors. Only Britannia I’ve truly been able to make my own….From the design of the hull to the smallest piece of china, she is a floating, seagoing expression of me.”

The Royal Yacht Britannia leaving Portsmouth, England, with the royal family on board for its traditional cruise around the western isles of Scotland on August 7, 1997.

The actual 412-foot royal yacht—built to replace its predecessor, the Victoria and Albert —was a real-life delight for Queen Elizabeth and the backdrop for many happy family memories. The construction of the vessel came at a tricky time for the royals, shortly after Elizabeth became queen at an unexpectedly young age and Philip was forced to give up his naval career, surname, and identity. Britannia became something of a release valve for Philip, who had served as a commander in the royal navy, and was able to oversee the design of the yacht’s technical features. The queen, meanwhile, handpicked the chintz fabrics and details down to the doorknobs and lampshades. It was the one home that Elizabeth and Philip had a true hand in designing, and was outfitted with a bolted-down piano for evening singalongs, framed family photos, travel mementos from around the globe, and a sundeck outfitted with wicker furniture. 

Given that the queen and Philip used the yacht during their far-reaching commonwealth tours, the floating palace also featured formal accommodations fit to entertain 13 U.S. presidents, including the Eisenhowers, the Fords, the Reagans, and the Clintons. In addition to a grand staircase, silver and crystal tableware, and a wine cellar, Britannia featured a state dining room large enough to accommodate 100 that could be converted into a private cinema.

The complete privacy that the ship afforded is one reason why the queen famously described it as “the one place where I can truly relax.” According to Sally Bedell Smith’s biography Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern Monarch, the queen even tucked away her trademark skirts and dresses while aboard. “It was one of the few times when the Queen wore trousers other than on horseback or while participating in field sports, mainly so that she could easily (and modestly) go up and down the ladders and onto launches when they went ashore on deserted beaches for picnics,” wrote Smith. The Britannia offered the queen other opportunities to play at informality, too. For instance, the seaman aboard did “not wear their caps at sea, which means the seamen are technically out of uniform and not required to salute, enabling the Queen to walk around the vessel without formal recognition,” reported The New York Times in 1983, adding that the seamen did their best to act invisible around the monarch. “They have been trained to execute orders on the upper deck, where the Queen’s private quarters are situated, without spoken words or commands.”

The yacht was also a physical reminder of some cherished moments for the family. In 1954, the ship’s maiden voyage reunited the queen and Philip with their young children, Charles and Anne, after nearly 18 months apart from them. (“The ice broke very quickly and we have been subjected to a very energetic routine and innumerable questions which have left us gasping!” the queen told her mother.) Beginning in the 1960s, the royal family began an annual tradition of cruising through the western Isles of Scotland en route to Balmoral for the holidays—stopping off for picnics and a visit to the Queen Mother at the Castle of Mey. There was a water slide that family members would happily hurl themselves down, and humorous performances put on by the yacht’s staff. (The former yacht chef recently recalled the queen and Philip “absolutely laughing their heads off at the stupid antics we got up to” during his 16 years aboard.) When Anne turned 21, she reportedly celebrated with a party in the State Dining Room, which had been converted into a dance hall complete with a dance floor. 

Inside the queen's private sitting room cabin with a miniature telephone switchboard on the desk.

The royal family would travel aboard the vessel for weeks and even months at a time as it toured the commonwealth countries. Philip once spent four consecutive months on Britannia during a 1956 tour that took him from Australia to the British bases in the Antarctic. (“We have fabulous parties when the Queen’s away and the Duke’s on board,” an indiscreet crew member confessed in 1976.) These trips were supported by a staggeringly large staff—220 yachtsmen who lived, slept, and worked aboard as well as about 45 royal-household staff members and occasionally a 26-member “contingent of the Royal Marines band to serenade foreign dignitaries,” per the L.A. Times. The yacht was also large enough to carry various other modes of transport, including a royal barge, two medium-speed motorboats, a pair of 14-foot sailing dinghies, plus a Range Rover, and Rolls-Royce for transportation on land.

Given the sheer scale of the floating-palace operation, it did not come as a complete shock in 1993 when Labour members of Parliament pointed out that the Britannia was the most expensive line item on the royal travel budget, totaling about $18 million a year in upkeep. The politicians underscored how unnecessary the yacht was by reporting that the ship—which had already incurred $150 million in remodeling and repairs—had been used for only 31 days in 1991.

With a heavy heart, the queen agreed to decommission the yacht in 1997 after 43 years of use and over a million miles traveled. “In the end, Britannia had come to symbolize politically incorrect extravagance and privilege at public expense, and the Queen told the government she was prepared to give it up,” wrote Smith in her biography of Elizabeth. But before the decommissioning service in Portsmouth, the royal family and courtiers went aboard for a final lunch in the State Dining Room and a tour of the vessel—her “country house at sea”—that had served the queen so well. An account of the emotional farewell is included in Smith’s biography of the queen:

“It was awful and she cried,” said one of her courtiers. The quayside service, conducted by naval chaplains and attended by 2,200 former Britannia officers and yachtsmen, was seen by a television audience of millions. As the band of the Royal Marines marched away, they played ‘Auld Lang Syne’ and saluted the yacht one final time. The queen, dressed in red, raised a black-gloved hand to her eye and wiped away a tear. Some commentators in the press criticized her for weeping over a mere ship. But to the Queen and her family, Britannia held decades of memories. “It had not just been for work,” said a lady-in-waiting. “It had been their floating home.” More than anything, the royal yacht “represented freedom to her,” said one of the Queen’s relatives.

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Inside ‘Britannia,’ Queen Elizabeth II’s Floating Palace

The Royal Yacht, according to Her Majesty, was “the one place where I can truly relax.”

The late Queen Elizabeth II had many royal residences , but it was the Royal Yacht Britannia , a 400-foot-long floating palace, that was closest to her heart. It was there, amid her family and the salty ocean air, that she could find quiet between royal engagements (staff wore rubber shoes and shouting was prohibited to keep noise at a minimum) and enjoy the sun on her private deck. “ Britannia is the one place where I can truly relax,” she once said.

But Britannia was far more than a posh royal cruise liner. She was a showcase for cutting-edge naval engineering and the first royal yacht that could do double duty as a floating hospital in wartime, if necessary. In 1986, for instance, she rescued more than 1,000 refugees from South Yemen. Over the course of her 44 years in service, Britannia facilitated 968 official visits and traveled over one million nautical miles.

She was also, of course, a time capsule of the best British design of the time, in terms of both technological prowess and decoration. Read on for more about the ship’s history, and where the Royal Yacht Britannia is now (hint: You can visit !).

What’s the backstory of Britannia ?

This history of royal liners goes back centuries. In fact, Britannia was the 83rd royal yacht; the first, HMY Mary, was constructed in 1660 by the Dutch East India Company and given as a gift to Charles II. Britannia ’s predecessor, Victoria & Albert III, was completed in 1901 and used by Edward II up through George VI, but was decommissioned in 1939 and eventually broken up as scrap. A new yacht was commissioned on February 4, 1952, in an effort to help King George VI’s health, according to the Royal Yacht Britannia museum, but the king died just two days later. The task to oversee the construction of the new yacht, then, fell on the young Queen Elizabeth II.

Who Built the Royal Yacht Britannia ?

Britannia was designed by John Brown & Co., the same marine engineering firm that built the RMS Lusitania and the Queen Mary. Construction on Britannia began in June 1952, and she was launched in a ceremony on April 16, 1953. The young queen didn’t reveal the name of the liner until her televised address in which she proudly stated before roaring crowds, “I name this ship Britannia .” Notably, a bottle of wine as opposed to the more traditional Champagne, was smashed across the ship’s bow during the christening—Champagne would have been much too ostentatious amid postwar austerity.

Who designed the Royal Yacht Britannia ’s interiors?

According to a technical paper presented to the Institution of Naval Architects in the spring of 1954, the royal and state apartments were to be on par with those of a first-class ocean liner. “The suitability of the decorative design and the furnishing of the Royal and State apartments has, of course, been very important,” the paper noted.

At first, Patrick McBride of the Glasgow, Scotland–based firm, McInnes Gardner & Partners, was selected to design the interiors, but the Queen and Duke of Edinburgh rejected those plans, deeming them too lavish, according to the Royal Yacht Britannia museum. Sir Hugh Casson, the director of architecture at the 1951 Festival of Britain, was the perfect candidate, with his modern eye and lack of ostentation. The design, the architect later wrote in his diary, “was really running a lawn mower over the Louis XVIl adornments. I was going to concentrate on one-color carpet throughout, which was sort of lilac/gray, and all the walls would be white. The only enrichments would be a bit of gilding in grand places.”

Working with Casson, Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip were highly involved, giving input for everything ranging from the furniture (much of it salvaged from the vessel’s predecessor, Victoria & Albert III , as another way to appear thrifty) to the ship’s blue exterior paint, inspired by the Duke of Edinburgh’s racing yacht, Bluebottle. Apartments featured a design like an elegant-yet-muted English country house, filled with floral sofas and antiques. The state drawing room could accommodate up to 250 guests. The Queen’s favorite room was the sun lounge, with its warm teak walls and rattan furnishings, and views across the veranda deck.

“I suppose Britannia was rather special as far as we were concerned because we were involved from the very beginning in organizing the design and furnishing and equipping and hanging the pictures and everything else,” Prince Philip said in a 1995 documentary film about the yacht. “For us it was rather special because all the other places we live in have been built by our predecessors. They started building Windsor 1,000 years ago, and they built Balmoral 100 years ago, and they built Sandringham 70 or 90 years ago. So we, in a sense, had our own.”

So successful was the partnership that Casson would go on to become a dear friend of the royal family and design interiors for Buckingham Palace, Balmoral , and Windsor Castle

Britannia was also a second home for the royal children. Each was given a member of the crew or “sea daddy” to look after them. “We found as children that there was so much to do, we expended so much energy that we couldn’t describe our time on the yacht as a rest,” Princess Anne said. Milk was delivered fresh from a farmer each day for the royal children, according to letters from the ship’s Acting Captain J. S. Dalglish. Later, the yacht would become the venue for numerous royal honeymoons and vacations, including Princess Diana and Prince Charles’s infamous 1981 Mediterranean cruise.

Where is the Royal Yacht Britannia Now?

As documented in season 5 of The Crown , the Royal Yacht was decommissioned on December 11, 1997, at a ceremony in Portsmouth, U.K., after nearly half a century in service and having traveled more than one million nautical miles. In addition to Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Charles, Princess Anne, Prince Andrew, and Prince Edward all attended the ceremony. As the British ensign was lowered to the tune of a navy band, Her Majesty was photographed blinking back tears .

Britannia was retired to Port of Leith in Edinburgh. Today, as one of the most popular tourist sites in the U.K., she serves as a museum and receives some 350,000 visitors per year who can tour the State dining room, the Queen’s bedroom, and sun lounge, as well as view the engine room and crew’s cabins. Visitors can even have tea and scones on the royal deck. The majority of the items on display are original to the yacht and are on loan from the Royal Collection.

In a bizarre 21st-century twist, former British prime minister Boris Johnson announced plans to build a Britannia successor, a £250 million yet-to-be-named, taxpayer-funded superyacht to operate as a “floating embassy.” The new British prime minister, Rishi Sunak, recently torpedoed those plans in favor of building a surveillance ship.

Anna Fixsen, Deputy Digital Editor at ELLE DECOR, focuses on how to share the best of the design world through in-depth reportage and online storytelling. Prior to joining the staff, she has held positions at Architectural Digest, Metropolis, and Architectural Record magazines. elledecor.com 

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• 20th Century

10 Facts About Royal Yacht Britannia

Peta Stamper

28 nov 2022.

The 83rd and last in a long line of royal yachts, HMY Britannia has become one of the most famous ships in the world. Now permanently moored at Edinburgh’s Port of Leith, the floating palace is a visitor attraction welcoming some 300,000 people aboard each year.

For Queen Elizabeth II, Britannia was the ideal residence for state visits and peaceful royal family holidays and honeymoons. For the British public, Britannia was a symbol of Commonwealth. For the 220 naval officers who lived aboard Britannia , and the royal family, the 412-foot-long yacht was home.

Having travelled more than a million nautical miles over 44 years of service to the British Crown, Her Majesty’s beloved boat was decommissioned in 1997. Here are 10 facts about life aboard HMY Britannia.

1. Britannia was launched by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 April 1953 using a bottle of wine, not champagne

Champagne is traditionally smashed against a ship’s hull during launching ceremonies. However, in a post-war climate champagne was seen as too frivolous, so a bottle of Empire wine was used instead.

Britannia launched from the John Brown & Company shipyard in Clydebank, Scotland.

2. Britannia was the 83rd Royal Yacht

King George VI , Elizabeth II’s father, had first commissioned the royal yacht that would become Britannia in 1952. The previous official boat had belonged to Queen Victoria and was rarely used. The tradition of royal yachts had been started by Charles II in 1660.

George decided that the Royal Yacht Britannia should both be a regal vessel as well as a functional one.

3. Britannia had two emergency functions

Britannia was designed to be converted into a hospital ship in time of war, although that function was never used. Additionally, as part of the Cold War plan Operation Candid, in the event of nuclear war the ship would become a refuge off the north-west coast of Scotland for the Queen and Prince Philip.

4. Her maiden voyage was from Portsmouth to Grand Harbour in Malta

She carried Prince Charles and Princess Anne to Malta to meet the Queen and Prince Philip at the end of the royal couple’s Commonwealth tour. The Queen stepped aboard Britannia for the first time in Tobruk on 1 May 1954.

Over the next 43 years, Britannia would transport the Queen, members of the Royal Family and various dignitaries on some 696 foreign visits.

The HMY Britannia on a visit by the Queen to Canada in 1964

Image Credit: Royal Canadian Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

5. Britannia hosted some of the 20th century’s most notable figures

In July 1959, Britannia sailed the newly opened Saint Lawrence Seaway to Chicago where she docked, making the Queen the first British monarch to visit the city. US President Dwight Eisenhower hopped aboard Britannia for part of the journey.

In later years, Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton would also step aboard. Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, took their honeymoon cruise on Britannia in 1981.

6. The crew were volunteers from the Royal Navy

After 365 days’ service, crew members could be admitted to the Permanent Royal Yacht Service as Royal Yachtsmen (‘Yotties’) and serve until they either chose to leave or were dismissed. As a result, some yachtsmen served on  Britannia  for over 20 years.

The crew also included a detachment of Royal Marines, who would dive underneath the ship each day while moored away from home to check for mines or other threats.

7. All royal children were allocated a ‘Sea Daddy’ on board the ship

The ‘sea daddies’ were primarily tasked with looking after the children and keeping them entertained (games, picnics and water fights) during voyages. They also oversaw the children’s chores, including cleaning the life rafts.

8. There was a ‘Jelly Room’ onboard for the royal children

The yacht had a total of three galley kitchens where Buckingham Palace ‘s chefs prepared meals. Among these galleys was a chilled room called the ‘Jelly Room’ for the sole purpose of storing royal children’s jellied desserts.

9. It cost around £11 million every year to run Britannica

The cost of running Britannia was always an issue. In 1994, another expensive refit for the ageing vessel was proposed. Whether or not to refit or commission a new royal yacht entirely came down to the election result of 1997. With repairs at a proposed cost of £17 million, Tony Blair’s new Labour government were unwilling to commit public funds to replace Britannica.

HMY Britannia in 1997, London

Image Credit: Chris Allen, Public Domain, via Wikimedia Commons

10. All the clocks on board remain stopped at 3:01pm

In December 1997,  Britannia was officially decommissioned. The clocks have been kept at 3:01pm – the exact moment the Queen went ashore for the last time following the ship’s decommissioning ceremony, during which the Queen shed a rare public tear.

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What Happened to the Royal Yacht Britannia?

The Crown season five begins and ends with the same plot point: The Royal Yacht Britannia. The vessel serves as a—fairly obvious—metaphor in the first episode, where Imelda Staunton’s Queen Elizabeth describes it as “a floating, seagoing version of me.” The problem with her metaphorical marine self? It’s in desperate need of multi-million dollar repairs. 

She asks British prime minister John Major, played by Jonny Lee Miller, whether the government might be able to help foot the bill. He, in turn, asks if the royal family might front the cost, given the public pushback they both might receive if such a seemingly extravagant project was approved. In the final episode of the season (a note to the reader: spoilers will follow), Tony Blair and Queen Elizabeth agree to decommission the yacht after Prince Charles’s trip to Hong Kong.

The Crown is known for taking much of its plot material from real-life events. In the case of the Royal Yacht Britannia, though—what really happened to the boat, and how much political controversy did it really cause?

To go back to the beginning, King George VI first commissioned the royal yacht that would become the Britannia in 1952. It was an exciting project, as the previous official boat had belonged to Queen Victoria, and was rarely used. (Queen Victoria, for one, did not like the water and never sailed.) Then, during the early 20th century, England was mostly at war, and making a massive, slow-sailing luxury ship would be a massive security risk in international waters. 

The Royal Yacht Britannia, George decided, should both be an extravagant vessel and a functional one, able to double as a hospital if times of war were to arise again. In 1953, the newly-crowned Queen Elizabeth christened the ship with a bottle of wine, as champagne was still seen as too extravagant post-war. In 1954, she set sail for the first time.

The Royal Yacht fulfilled many functions, most of them leisurely. Over the years, the boat hosted four royal honeymoons, including that of Princess Diana and Prince Charles, as well as many family vacations. In 1969, after his investiture as the Prince of Wales, Charles hosted an intimate party on board to celebrate. (Newspapers at the time wrote that he danced with his dear friend Lucia Santa Cruz —the very person who eventually introduced him to Camilla Parker Bowles.)

It also served as a grandiose mode of transport for many royal visits. In 1959, for example, Britannia sailed to Chicago to celebrate the recently-opened St. Lawrence seaway in Canada, and President Eisenhower joined her on board. Twenty years later, she sailed to Abu Dhabi for her first official visit to the United Arab Emirates, where she held a grand dinner for Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan.

And although Queen Elizabeth's reign was not during wartime, the royal yacht did execute a humanitarian mission, as King George VI had always planned for: In 1986, it sailed to Aden to evacuate over 1,000 refugees from the civil war in Yemen.

The New York Times once described the 412-foot Britannia as “an ordinary yacht what Buckingham Palace is to the house next door.” It wasn’t an exaggeration—Britannia was essentially a floating palace. It had a drawing room, a dining room, two sitting rooms, as well as galleys and cabins for all the officers. The stateroom interiors were just as ornate as any other royal estate, while the bedrooms—which all had their own bathrooms and dressing rooms—were designed to feel surprisingly personal. 

“Within the royal apartments, however, the regal elegance gives way to the homey, patched elbow chic of an English country house, with flowered chintz slipcovers, family photographs, and rattan settees, interspersed with the occasional relic of Empire—shark's teeth from the Solomon Islands here, a golden urn commemorating Nelson's victory at Trafalgar there,” the New York Times found when it boarded the ship in 1976.

The cost of running Britannia was always an issue. Politicians raised questions about its financial value as far back as 1954, when two MPs lobbied for an investigation on why the yacht’s refurbishment would cost 5.8 million pounds, accusing the royal family of waste and extravagance. A government committee later dismissed the accusations. In 1994, the Conservative government ruled the yacht too costly to refurbish, when repairs came in at a whopping 17 million, but then briefly walked back on their decision a few years later. 

However, when Tony Blair’s Labour government won the election, and the new government once again declined to pay for Britannia. Britannia’s final journey was to far-flung Hong Kong in 1997, as Prince Charles turned over the British colony back to the Chinese at the end of Britain's 99-year lease. When they finally decommissioned the boat that summer, the queen cried—one of the few times she’s shown emotion in public. The boat had logged over one million nautical miles.

Today, Britannia sits permanently docked in Edinburgh. Visitors can take tours of its grand galleys, or even rent it out for events. Yet, despite its retirement, the concept of the royal yacht lives on: In 2021, Boris Johnson floated the idea of a new boat. However, a mere eight days ago, Rishi Sunak has scrapped the project—showing that, even now, the concept remains a controversial one.

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What really happened to Royal Yacht Britannia from ‘The Crown’ Season 5?

LONDON — The much-hyped fifth season of “The Crown” opens with a heavy-handed metaphor weighing approximately 4,000 tons.

It’s 1953, and a young Queen Elizabeth II, a month before her coronation, is in Scotland to launch the new royal yacht, the Britannia. “I hope this brand-new vessel, like your brand-new queen, will prove to be dependable and constant, capable of weathering any storm,” she declares to great applause.

And so the queen and her ship are inextricably linked as the Netflix TV show fast-forwards to 1991, when questions about costly repairs for the Britannia are presented in parallel to questions about whether the 65-year-old queen is too old for her role.

King Charles III wants to look ahead. ‘The Crown’ drags him back.

There is no missing that this is a narrative device in a series now labeled a “fictional dramatization.” But the episode’s release this week has renewed interest in the history of the royal yacht and ignited a debate about how the British monarch interacted with her government. It also happened to coincide with a modern-day echo of 1991, as new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, facing a recession, sank plans for a replacement royal yacht.

What to know about Britannia, ‘the floating palace’

There is a real Royal Yacht Britannia, and, as in the show, the young queen really did announce its name and christen it with a bottle of Empire wine. (Though not with a self-referential speech.)

The Britannia was the latest in a series of royal yachts dating back to 1660 and King Charles II . In 44 years of service, the ship sailed more than 1 million nautical miles — equivalent to more than 40 circumnavigations of Earth — calling at more than 600 ports in 135 countries and projecting British influence around the world.

The Britannia was used for state visits and receptions, royal family holidays and honeymoons. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton all spent time on board, as did Boris Yeltsin and Nelson Mandela. When civil war broke out in South Yemen in 1986, the yacht was rerouted to help evacuate civilians.

“The Crown” suggests the yacht was the queen’s favorite “home,” cherished even more than Balmoral in the Scottish highlands. Biographers don’t dispute that this could have been true. In his book “Queen of Our Times,” Robert Hardman writes, “There were few places where the Queen would be happier.”

Although served by a crew of 220, the ship was a place where the royal family could relax and escape the watchful eye of the public. Hugh Casson, who designed the interior, once recounted, “the overall idea was to give the impression of a country house at sea.” Prince Philip, the queen’s husband, was fascinated with the birds he saw during voyages in the 1950s and even published a book titled “Birds from Britannia.”

Did the queen lobby for repairs?

The controversial part of “The Crown” portrayal centers on whether the queen actively lobbied Prime Minister John Major for the government to pay for extensive repairs — which could have amounted to inappropriate interference in politics by a constitutional monarch.

She says in the show: “Here I am, coming to you, prime minister, on bended knee, for the sign-off, but I’m hoping that will be a formality.”

The character of Major, who was prime minister during a tough recession, responds by suggesting the royal yacht is “something of a luxury” and that spending public money on it while the economy is in the tank would not be good for the government or the royal family.

The queen persists, arguing that the yacht is “a central and indispensable part of the way the crown serves the nation” and “a floating, seagoing expression of me.”

The queen-ship metaphor is dragged out in a later conversation, when the character of Prince Charles — impatient to be king — tells Major about the Britannia: “Sometimes these old things are too costly to keep repairing.”

So did any of that actually take place?

The real-life Major has called the show’s imagined conversations “a barrel-load of nonsense.”

Robert Lacey, a historical consultant on “The Crown,” defended the depiction. He told The Washington Post that the subject of the yacht would have inevitably come up between the queen and the prime minister, who met once a week to discuss matters of state.

“She certainly spoke about it to the prime minister,” Lacey said. “Obviously, the royal family would have lobbied for it. The queen did want another royal yacht.”

Hardman, the royal biographer, insisted that while the queen no doubt would have been interested in repairs or a replacement, she would not have “leaned on her prime ministers for money.”

In a letter written in 1994, later stored in the National Archives, the queen’s deputy private secretary Kenneth Scott wrote to the cabinet office that “the Queen would naturally very much welcome it if a way could be found of making available for the nation in the 21st century the kind of service which Britannia has provided for the last 43 years.”

Scott noted, however, that “the question of whether there should be a replacement yacht is very much one for the government” and “the last thing I should like to see is a newspaper headline saying ‘Queen Demands New Yacht.’”

The Times of London headline when the letter was uncovered in 2018: “ I want a new yacht, Queen told Whitehall in secret letter .”

What happened to the Britannia?

Major’s government wasn’t swayed by arguments to repair or renew the ship. Even with a retrofit costing an estimated 17 million pounds, the Britannia would be expensive to run and hard to maintain. It was hard to justify when air travel was a readily available alternative for royal trips and trade missions.

The yacht’s final voyage abroad was to Hong Kong in 1997, when the territory was handed back to China. A few months later, the Britannia undertook a farewell tour of Britain, calling at six major ports and blasting its sirens as it passed the shipyard that built it, before returning for a decommissioning ceremony in Portsmouth, England on Dec. 11, 1997. The ship’s clocks were stopped. The Royal Marines band played. Lacey noted: “The only time the queen was seen to cry was when the royal yacht was de-commissioned.”

The ship is now a visitor attraction site in Edinburgh, Scotland. On the day of the queen’s state funeral in September, a lone piper played a lament on the deck.

What about plans for a replacement royal yacht?

The possibility of a replacement yacht gained some traction during the 1997 general election, but the incoming Labour government nixed the idea.

More than two decades later, as part of a campaign to promote a reinvigorated “Global Britain” in the aftermath of Brexit, Prime Minister Boris Johnson proposed a new royal yacht . There was a push to name the ship after Prince Philip, who died last year, though it would be more for the government than for the royal family. In Johnson’s vision, the ship would tour the world as a “floating embassy,” where officials would host summits and cement trade deals. It would cost an estimated 250 million pounds to build, plus 30 million pounds a year to run.

But once again, the economic climate is not favorable for big yacht projects. The new Sunak administration announced this week that it was terminating the royal yacht plan and would instead procure a surveillance ship that could protect energy cables and other infrastructure. The prime minister’s spokesman said it was “right to prioritize at a time when difficult spending decisions need to be made.”

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What to Know About the Royal Yacht Britannia Featured on 'The Crown' Season 5

The Royal Yacht Britannia served as the official royal yacht of the British monarchy for 44 years

The Crown is diving into royal events from the '90s in season 5 , and that includes the decommissioning of Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia, also known as the Royal Yacht Britannia.

In the first episode of the new season, Claire Foy ( who portrayed Queen Elizabeth II in seasons 1 and 2) reprises her role as the monarch as a flashback shows the yacht's official launch in April 1953.

At the time, the new yacht held special significance as it was launched by the Queen just before her own coronation in June 1953 .

Through the years, the vessel sailed over 1,000,000 nautical miles on 968 state visits with the royal family as they entertained prime ministers and presidents, per the Royal Yacht Britannia website. It also served as the venue for several royal honeymoons , including Princess Diana and Princes Charles in 1981 .

From when it was commissioned to where the Royal Yacht Britannia is now, here's everything to know about the royal yacht.

When was the Royal Yacht Britannia commissioned?

As shown on The Crown , Royal Yacht Britannia was officially launched on April 16, 1953 , at the shipyard of John Brown & Co. Ltd in Clydebank, Dunbartonshire, where Queen Elizabeth unveiled the yacht's official name.

Following Queen Elizabeth 's coronation on June 2, 1953, the Royal Yacht Britannia was commissioned into the Royal Navy on January 11, 1954, before sailing her first overseas port on April 22.

How big is the Royal Yacht Britannia?

The Royal Yacht Britannia is about 412 feet long , with a beam width of 55 feet and five decks , and weighs over 4,000 tons.

Who used the Royal Yacht Britannia?

The yacht was described as the royal family's "floating residence" during its 44 years of service. As it was used to host "magnificent state receptions and banquets, and guests ," numerous world leaders boarded the yacht over the years, including Sir Winston Churchill, Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan and Rajiv Gandhi.

Per the Royal Yacht Britannia website, the yacht also " allowed the Royal Family some rare privacy away from their public duties and was famously described by HM Queen Elizabeth II as 'the one place I can truly relax.' "

Furthermore, the Royal Yacht Britannia was the venue of four royal honeymoons : Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips, Prince Charles and Princess Diana, Princess Margaret and Antony Armstrong-Jones, and Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson. All four royal marriages ended in divorce, which Queen Elizabeth famously reflected on in her 1992 speech where she referred to the past year as her "annus horribilis ," or horrible year.

When was the Royal Yacht Britannia decommissioned?

The yacht's retirement was announced in 1994 as a result of the substantial costs needed to repair the ship. It was estimated that the cost would £17 million, which would only prolong the yacht for another five years.

On December 11, 1997, the Royal Yacht Britannia was decommissioned during an official ceremony that was attended by most of the senior members of the royal family. It was been reported that Queen Elizabeth was seen uncharacteristically shedding a tear during the decommissioning.

"Looking back over 44 years we can all reflect with pride and gratitude upon this great ship which has served the country, the Royal Navy and my family with such distinction," the Queen said at the time .

Where is the Royal Yacht Britannia now?

Listed as part of the National Historic Fleet, people can now visit the Royal Yacht Britannia at Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland. Visitors are able to see various parts of the yacht including Britannia's five decks, the state apartments, as well as the Sun Lounge, which was the Queen's favorite room in which to have her afternoon tea.

Does the Royal Yacht Britannia have a successor?

Plans for a successor to the Royal Yacht Britannia first began in 2019 when it was reported that the late Sir Donald Gosling had donated £50 million to pay for the construction . In 2021, the yacht was commissioned by Boris Johnson to host trade fairs and diplomatic events and it was expected to go into service in 2024 or 2025.

However, in November 2022, it was reported by BBC that plans for the yacht were being scrapped as the government "searches for spending cuts." The new yacht was estimated to cost up to £250 million.

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Prince William Broke Royal Tradition With His New Look

It isn't the first time he's rocked it.

Being next in line for the throne comes with many expectations — including looking prim and proper at all times. However, that hasn’t deterred Prince William from experimenting with his facial hair.

After years of being clean-shaven, the Prince of Wales surprised royalists in August when he debuted a new beard in a video celebrating Great British athletes following the 2024 Paris Olympics.

William showed off his stubble again on Sept. 12 when he attended the Sovereign's Parad e at the Royal Air Force College with his father, King Charles III.

“Prince William with a beard was not on my bingo card this year, but here we are,” one fan wrote on X , formerly Twitter, of the senior royal’s new look. “The Prince of Wales with a beard is a vibe I can get on board with,” another commented .

While William’s newly-grown beard came as a shock to many, it isn’t the first time he’s rocked facial hair. In 2008, the future monarch was photographed with a beard while attending the royal family’s traditional Christmas Day church service.

However, William soon went back to his clean-shaven look, likely due to his work in the Royal Air Force,  where facial hair was forbidden at the time.

History Of The Royal Beard

William isn’t the first royal family member to grow out their facial hair. Prince Harry, for example, debuted his beard back in 2013 and has kept it ever since.

In his 2023 memoir Spare , the Duke of Sussex described his stubble as a “security blanket,” and revealed that it caused a royal family rift in the weeks leading up to his 2018 wedding to Meghan Markle.

Writing in the book, Harry claimed that he asked his grandmother Queen Elizabeth for permission to keep his beard for the royal nuptials. Although the late Queen granted his request, William asked his younger brother to “shave it off” as facial hair wasn’t allowed in the British Army, and Harry planned to wear an armed forces uniform at the ceremony.

William and Harry’s grandfather, the late Prince Philip , also grew out his beard back in 1965 when he and Queen Elizabeth toured the Commonwealth on their royal yacht. In his book Queen of the World , author Robert Hardman claimed that Philip’s facial hair inspired the Queen to play a prank on her husband.

“Knowing that he had grown a beard on his travels, the Queen had arranged for everyone in the royal entourage — herself included — to put on fake whiskers just before the Duke walked in,” Hardman wrote.