A yacht for the ages

From undertaking humanitarian missions to hosting Royal honeymoons, the revered Britannia has a history that continues to captivate millions

- Daniel Pembrey

I AM SURE that all of you who are present here realise how much the building of this ship meant to the late King, my father," spoke the late Queen on a gusty River Clyde in Glasgow, launching HMY Britannia in 1953. "He felt most strongly, as I do, that a yacht was a necessity and not a luxury for the head of our great British Commonwealth, between whose countries the sea is no barrier but the natural and indestructible highway."

Due to postwar austerity, the bottle smashed against her hull was Empire wine, not champagne. Still, Britannia made fitting use of that natural and indestructible highway, providing vivid formative experiences for His Majesty the current King, his younger siblings and so many others who boarded or merely beheld her, sometimes floodlit at night, sometimes gleaming by daylight, invariably in dramatic settings. The effect can still be felt today at a newly expanded visitor centre in Edinburgh's Port of Leith.