E1351 - I Name This Ship Brittania

Queen Elizabeth II stood before 30,000 spectators at Clydebank to launch HMY Britannia on 16th April, 1953. The yacht’s name had been kept secret, and when the Queen finally declared it “Britannia”, the crowd responded with a surge of cheering applause. 

Commissioned shortly before the death of her father, King George VI, the ship was intended to help the Royal family maintain personal ties across the far-flung Commonwealth, but it also made for a discreet setting for diplomacy, playing host to the likes of Nelson Mandela and Boris Yeltsin. During the Cold War, it was even earmarked as a poten...