Royal Yacht
Particulars
Displacement: 5,769 Tonnes, Dimensions: Length 412ft (126m), Beam 55ft (17m), Draught 15ft (4.6m) Height 123ft (37m) to top of mainmast
Machinery: 2 Pametrada steam turbines, 12,000hp (8,900kW)
Speed: 21.5 knots Range: 2,400 nautical miles (4,400km)
Capacity: 250 guests, 1 platoon of Royal Marines
Complement: 21 Officers
250 Royal Yachtsmen
Built by John Brown & Co. Ltd Shipyard and launched by Queen Elizabeth II on 16 April 1953 and commissioned on 11 January 1954.
Britannia sailed on her maiden voyage from Portsmouth to Grand Harbour, Malta, departing on 14 April and arriving on 22 April 1954.
She carried Princess Anne and Prince Charles to Malta in order for them to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in Tobruk at the end of the royal couple's Commonwealth Tour. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh embarked on Britannia for the first time in Tobruk on 1 May 1954.
On 20 July 1959, Britannia sailed the newly opened Saint Lawrence Seaway en route to Chicago, where she docked, making the Queen the first British monarch to visit the city. US President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aboard Britannia for part of this cruise; Presidents Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton were welcomed aboard in later years.
Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, took their honeymoon cruise on Britannia in 1981. The ship evacuated over 1,000 refugees from the civil war in Aden in 1986. The vessel sailed to Canada in 1991 and made a port of call in Toronto and Kingston, Ontario.
HMY Britannia, when on royal duties, was escorted by a Royal Navy warship. The yacht was a regular sight at Cowes Week in early August and, usually, for the remainder of the month, was home to the Queen and her family for an annual cruise around the islands off the west coast of Scotland, known as the "Western Isles Tour".
The Royal Yacht's final foreign mission was to convey the last Governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten, and the Prince of Wales back from Hong Kong after its handover to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997.
Britannia was decommissioned on 11 December 1997. The Queen and senior members of the Royal Family were present at the decommissioning ceremony.
Britannia is a visitor attraction moored in the historic Port of Leith in Edinburgh, Scotland.