Those were the days

Britannia, still making the news after all these years

TWENTY-THREE years after she was decommissioned, the royal yacht Britannia continues to make headlines.

The yacht, which was built at the John Brown’s yard in Clydebank and is now permanently berthed at Leith, has been rated Britain’s favourite historical attraction in a survey by

Which?, the consumer magazine. It came top of a poll of the UK’S top 50 most visited attractions.

The order for a new royal yacht was placed with Brown’s on February 4, 1952, just two days before the death of King George VI, the Queen’s father.

On April 17 the following year she and the Duke of Edinburgh visited the Clydebank yard, where to cheers she launched the new yacht and in ringing tones disclosed its name, which until that moment had been a well-kept secret.

Britannia is pictured, right, taking to the water after her launch.

“Any launch excites interest, a royal launch has an added distinction, and the royal launching of a yacht for royal use sets a special mark on the visit,” this newspaper remarked in a leading article the following day. “There could have been no happier choice of name.”

The royal yacht, which is seen above at the Erskine Bridge, was in royal service for 44 years, offering what the monarch herself described, in 1997, as

“magnificent service”.

Britannia sailed more than a million miles, visiting 144 countries, and carried out more than 700 royal visits at home and overseas, as well as numerous successful commercial programmes.

“Her achievements,” the Queen added, “are a great testament to those who designed and built her and to those craftsmen and artisans who have maintained her with such dedication over all these years.”