History
Britannia sailed on her maiden voyage from Portsmouth to Grand Harbour, Malta, departing 14 April and arriving 22 April 1954. She carried Princess Anne and Prince Charles to Malta in order for them to meet the Queen and Prince Philip in Tobruk at the end of the royal couple's Commonwealth Tour. The Queen and Prince Philip 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 Canadian monarch to visit the city. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower was aboard Britannia for part of this cruise; Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan also were later welcomed aboard the Yacht. Charles and Diana, the Prince and Princess of Wales, took their honeymoon cruise aboard Britannia in 1981. The ship also evacuated over 1,000 refugees from the civil war in Aden in 1986.
According to journalist Andrew Marr in his book The Real Elizabeth (2012), at least as of 1965, the British government planned for the Royal Yacht to serve as the Queen's refuge in the event of nuclear war. Peter Hennessy wrote, "It was her floating nuclear bunker... it would lurk in the sea lochs on the north-west coast of Scotland; the mountains would shield it from the Soviet radar and at night it would go quietly from one sea loch to another."
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).
Read more about this topic: HMY Britannia
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