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Published: September 30th 2008
HMY Britannia
Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia. The name was a closely guarded secret until the ship was christened.Thursday 19th June
Eileen probably sighed with relief (to discover that we really were human) when we finally arrived with the other patrons for breakfast. She provided a full English breakfast, and very nice it was too!
We spent quite a bit of the morning packing two very large boxes to send gifts, and other items we had purchased along the way, back home. Eileen allowed us to leave the large cases with her again as we were heading off to Stirling. But first we chuffed off to the railway station to post the packages. (They were being freighted by a company that specialised in shipping excess baggage and was based at the station.)
But before departing for Stirling, Marion wanted to see the Royal Yacht Britannia. After being decommissioned in 1997, there was furious competition amongst a number of UK cities to see who secured the yacht. Britannia was sailed to her final berth at the port of Leith, Edinburgh in 1998.
The ship really is a relic from the past, not particularly in its appearance but in its function. Certainly it served the Royal family well as a means of comfortably travelling to the far-flung
Sign
A sign, bearing the royal coat of arms, at Her Majesty's Yacht. corners of the Commonwealth, as well as providing a perfect venue for very private honeymoons ; romantic cruises to out-of -the-way places, with no paparazzi around. (Four royal couples honeymooned on Britannia: Princess Margaret & Anthony Armstrong-Jones, Princess Anne & Captain Mark Phillips, Prince Charles & Diana Spencer and finally the Prince Andrew & Sarah Ferguson.) But in these days of terrorists, the ship would be an easy target. (Even in its hey-day, scuba divers constantly inspected its hull whenever it was docked in port.)
Upon entering the building the boat is moored alongside, there are three long corridors you have to traverse before actually getting close to the ship. The first two are full of exhibits and artifacts, along with quite a number of large billboards full of text and pictures documenting chapters of the ship's history.
Amongst a myriad of other facts we learnt that Britannia had sailed the equivalent distance of once around the world for each year of her 22-years of service.
We also discovered that Britannia was designed not only as a convenient transport vessel come working office for English Royalty when visiting some of the more distant corners of the Commonwealth;
A Living Room?
This immense room bears some resemblance to a living room - but you may have to shout from one side to the other! but, in addition to being used as a retreat or holiday vessel, it had also been designed to double as a hospital ship.
The final corridor just contains many photos of various minor and major Royals.
It is suggested that you start at the top of the ship and work your way down, level by level. Therefore we started off in the wheelhouse. This was typical of the type of control cabins built into most ships nowadays. Some of the equipment was antique, but there was also a lot of newer equipment and it was possible to spot were minor modifications had been made in a couple of spots. This was a good spot to view the "life boats". At least that's what they looked like but in the guide they all have funny names like Jolly Boat, Activity Boat, Royal Barge and Motor Boat.
Although there were a set of steps down to the next level, these were roped off and we followed the arrows back to where we had started. It became clear that there was a gantry beside the boat housing elevators and a very wide staircase. This was connected to the Brittannia by a
Living Quarters
The Royal family certainly aren't as cramped as the poor sailors! These are the crew's quarters. number of wide gangplanks at each level. Each time we were to move to a new level we had to do so by entering the gantry and using these stairs or, (for the lazy or physically impaired), the elevators. I found this fairly unsatisfactory as it gave you less of the feel of being on a trip. I suspect it was structured this way so that visitors were forced to do a circuit of each level and so it was easier to keep tabs on them, instead of allowing people to wander willy-nilly all over the ship.
Britannia is really two ships in one. Forward of the mainmast is the operational section of the ship where the sailors lived, relaxed and worked. Aft of the mainmast is where the Royal Apartments are situated.
On the way aft towards the Royal Apartments we passed a glass garage housing the Royal Rolls-Royce. Apparently it is a far from simple task to get the car on board. The car, inside a special transportation frame, had to be lifted by crane onto a special track fitted to the deck. Even then the Rolls could only be squeezed into position by removing its
Dining Room
This immense dining room is still hired out for functions. bumpers. It was eventually decided that it was easier to source an appropriate vehicle from whatever country the Queen was visiting, so in later voyages the car was rarely carried and the garage used for beer storage. The Rolls was put back in place when the yacht was retired and placed on display.
Although the Royal Apartments are well-appointed, they are not as opulent as those we have seen elsewhere. Indeed they have somewhat the appearance of furniture from a "holiday house". The only difference being that rather than the tatty second-hand, non-matching bits and pieces that we tend to put in our holiday shacks, these furnishings are what would be in our everyday home.
However there are still features that baffle me when it comes to the Royals; such as both the Duke and Queen's baths having a thermometer built-in to ensure that the temperature is correct. (It's over-the top ridiculousness like this that leaves me drop-jawed about the Royal family. Another "you've gotta be joking" moment was when I discovered that Prince Charles' valet has to place the toothpaste on the toothbrush to be used on the royal chompers.)
On the other hand the state
Laundry
These huge machines were used by the sailors to clean their uniforms and the Royal Family's clothes, though not at the same time! rooms aboard the yacht are the real eye-poppers. The State Drawing room includes a pair of massive Persian rugs, almost completing obscuring the grey carpet below. This room also features folding mahogany doors, chintz sofas and armchairs and a Walmer baby grand piano (fastened to the floor by bolts in case of heavy weather). Apparently the original plan was to have an open fire in this room, but this was scrapped due to a Naval regulation that a sailor must be stationed beside it, (armed with a bucket of water), whenever it was lit.
But the grandest (and largest) room on the yacht was the State Dining Room. Originally it featured a 32 seater mahogany dining table that could be split up and placed in many different configurations; but the room is now crowded with a large number of smaller mahogany tables. It is still used (I would imagine hired out to those able to afford it); indeed during our visit people were bustling about and the smell of cooking food was apparent in many areas of the ship, so I assume that some function was being prepared for the evening.
More over-the-top preparation took place here for
Hilltop
The hilltop we spied entering Stirling. State Banquets as it took up to three hours to set places for 56 diners! It was such a long, drawn-out procedure because each item of cutlery and china was placed with the aid of a ruler to ensure that they were correctly positioned. ("Smithers, report to the brig. The bread and butter knife on table 4 was one-eighth of an inch too far to the right.") I don't know what they did if the seas were rough; maybe they applied Velcro or employed sticky-tape!
The most arresting feature about the State Dining Room were the items in the alcoves around the room. The walls of the room are white with gold trim and the trimming is used to highlight the niches; within which are many unusual objects that have been presented to the Queen by dignitaries from various countries. Some of these are a Sioux peace pipe, a Swedish sword dated from 1738 and a Narwhal tusk. Unique curiosities in other alcoves included ceremonial daggers and swords from the Gulf States, a long red strip of feather money from Santa Cruz and a wooden shark carving signed in 1971 by all the residents of Pitcairn Island (the descendants
Stirling Castle
Stirling Castle - a powerful, strategic fortress which was the focus of many battles. of Fletcher Christian and the other mutineers from the Bounty), There are also unusual items collected by the royal family such as the two-metre long whalebone collected by Prince Phillip on Deception Island.
After seeing the relatively spacious areas assigned to the royal family we moved forrad to view the crew's quarters. We discovered that the Admiral (commanding officer) had a suite (a day cabin {dining tables and chairs, as well as a sofa and armchairs}, a sleeping cabin and a bathroom. As we went down the military pecking order we discovered that the Senior Officers had much smaller rooms (with a sofa that converted into their bed) and a shared bathroom, the Junior Officers were allocated very small cabins, while we found cramped bunk beds and tiny lockers for belongings assigned to the other sailors.
Different ranks were provided with separate recreation areas (known in the Navy as Messes). All the messes sported a bar and signed photographs of members of the royal family. The weirdest decoration was in the Wardroom Anteroom. It sported a stuffed wombat adorning the ceiling fan. Apparently the officer's (obviously boys at heart) used to play "wombat tennis" which involved "serving" the stuffed wombat into the ceiling fan and then "batting" it around the room. (Strange people these Brits!)
We also visited the sick bay which looked totally antediluvian. The operating table next door was reminiscent of an antiquated dentist's chair. (I could imagine Goldfinger or Dr. No chaining James Bond to it, ready to enjoy a little "diversion" from their major plans.) The surrounds would certainly not have reassured me if I wasn't feeling 100%! Apparently the stuffed wombat was a regular visitor here (don't know whether it felt nervous or not) to be stitched together by the doctor after a vigorous set or two.
We continued on to the laundry which was a mass of various vats, sundry mechanical devices and presses. Again the machinery, while impressive in size and number looked pretty old-fashioned. Conditions in here , when it was operating, were horrendous with temperatures rising as high as 45o Celsius. The amount of washing, drying, ironing and pressing devices were spread over a very large cabin space and seemed more than what would be required for an average sized crew of around 240 (the actual crew size varied depending on what duties the yacht was performing) plus guests. The laundry was created on this scale to help allow the boat to double as a hospital ship if required.
The laundry could wash, dry and press up to 600 shirts a day. A strict roster was enforced to ensure that the royal's clothing was not washed along with the crew's clothes.
On one occasion all the washing turned a startling shade of blue. The fault was traced to a chemical reaction in the copper pipes, which was halted by adjusting the water's pH.
On the way off the yacht we passed the Royal Barge, which, despite its name, is a fairly sleek looking medium sized motor boat which allowed the Royal Family to travel to shore if Britannia was anchored on the harbour.
Finding our car in the car park without difficulty, we headed off to Striling. The journey was fairly uneventful although, just outside of Edinburgh, we did pass a rather strange hill populated by what looked like an ancient Roman temple, a domed building resembling an astronomical observatory and a (non-leaning) tower topped by a cross.
As we approached Stirling the landscape was dominated by the rock massif topped with the castle, and occasional glimpses of the Wallace monument dominating it's separate hillside.
Two of a number of sites to explore tomorrow.
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