The new Royal yacht
 

Well, sort off.

Royal Yacht it is not: Prince Harry to sleep on tanker vessel during Caribbean tour

Must be good for some Admirals promotion chances, I could imagine the conversation

"Excuse me we need a ship for a Royal tour"
"No problem, let's see what's available, Tug, Lugger......ahhh Tanker, no problem Sir, we have just the thing available."

The same tanker that has been on station for months and which is a regular on these deployments?

Nothing to see here except more desperate attempts at outrage.

No, not outrageous, just arguably a missed opportunity. The case for a Royal Yacht is as a sales tool. Counter-argument of course is that some of the many deals signed on Britannia may have been done anyway.

Not outrage, just the feeling that this is the standards that our country have sunk to when doing a royal tour.

Not for one moment do I sign up to the argument for building a new royal yacht in these austere times, but I do feel we could have done better, this projects the image of the UK to foreign countries, and a tanker in any shape or form projects just one image.

We talk the talk about being a world leader, projecting a force on the world stage, yet when it comes down to backing that up by presenting ourselves to the world, a knackered old tanker is the best we can put up as a backdrop to a high profile tour.
Even your third world leaders can do better.

Well his G/F is a paralegal who is doing well in law school - perhaps she can sue the government for failing to provide a Royal Yacht for her and her beloved.

PDR

As a historical aside, I was watching 'The Crown' on netflix which used a bit of real archive footage of HMY Britannia arriving in Gib in 1955 escorted by thirteen destroyers of the Med Squadron.

How times have changed - not sure that the grey funnel line could manage to put thirteen destroyers to sea at once anywhere these days.

Trials for a new Royal Yacht have already taken place!


http://your-hols.com/wp-content/uplo...er-480x320.jpg

Why not use an heavier than air machine....? HRH looks rather unsure in that Waka .

Perhaps a Charter could be arranged with Sir Philip Green ?

sled dog,

If that canoe stops suddenly...........he'll have a "heavier than air machine" on top of him all right !

D.

Danny....your post #9....brilliant!!! Still spluttering here....

Does this make him Tanker Trash?

It's 13, hardly knackered or old.

Maybe he asked for something RAF to sleep in and someone transposed the last two letters by mistake?

Bing, it's the MOD, the hull is maybe 13 years old, but they probably filled it with surplus junk Sir Walter Raleigh would recognise.

Mil aviation relevance?

All above me here is bollocks. If you want to really get away with another fawning gin palace with a flag for the exclusive partying of a a tiny few do the following;
1. Build it in Britain and use British owned/based companies to do that, preferably for political reasons in England (very difficult now, that post Thatcher but not impossible (Birkenhead or Barrow maybe...long shot south coast).
2. Populate it with a smattering of fawning volunteer RN as SME but use local young civvy kids as cleaning up fodder crew, pretend they're onside and pay them nowt as a privilege.
3. **** it off round the world as an gawp fest oddity ASAP to gain intrest.
4. Tie in sponsorship from the usual suspects (BAE, BA, Virgin, BT) and other gong issue demanding Sirs.

The British way.

#

Having been on her sister ship I'd say they hid any cost cutting rather well, it's a significantly cushier number than one of his gran's boats. Of course it's built to merchant shipping regulations so they can't cram the accomodation in like Pusser would for starters.

Downsized, it has a helipad

Hangarshuffle is exhibiting his customary grumbling lower deck shoulder chips....

Of course Great Britain should have a proper Royal Yacht crewed by the RN. Anyone who disagrees should be incarcerated in the Tower at HM's pleasure.