Yacht Britannia Still Rules the Waves

“And over here, gentlemen, is the Queen’s personal study,” said the young naval officer, resplendent in starched white uniform.

Curious Malaysian businessmen in expensive suits peered obediently at Queen Elizabeth’s simple but elegant cabin.

Since 1968 Britain has been giving a few of the world’s businessmen the royal treatment on board the Queen’s floating palace to drum up investment.

Selected groups are invited to spend a day on the HMS Britannia, attending seminars and conducted tours of the yacht--and, according to the official royal yacht brochure, the red carpet welcome seems to work.

Only 13 such tours have been conducted in 20 years but they have “generated hundreds of millions of pounds of business,” the brochure says.

The latest guests were about 50 chief executives of Malaysian banks and corporations who trailed around the labyrinth of gangways and narrow stairways aboard the 410-foot yacht.

Ducking under railings through the laundry room, where temperatures soar to 120 degrees, the red-faced executives were enthusiastic.

“It’s a charming way to do business. They have us all on board with no telephones and secretaries to distract us,” a bank chairman said as the Britannia sailed majestically off the western Malaysian port of Klang.

“We came here because we want to see how the royal family lives,” he said, after lunching in the dining area where the Queen has her meals. On the menu were lemon chicken and lamb with mint sauce, washed down with wine from the Buckingham Palace cellars.

“No, I’m afraid you can’t visit her majesty’s cabin,” said Cmdr. David Lancaster.

“The Britannia has the status of a royal palace and security is as one would expect of Buckingham Palace,” he said.

“There is a suite of cabins abaft (at the rear, above the main deck) which serves as the royal apartments but we can’t show them for security reasons,” he said.

A total of 260 officers and men work aboard the Britannia, many of whom have also served on warships such as the guided missile destroyer Nottingham, which escorts the royal yacht.

“It is different and very enjoyable but work is no lighter than being on a warship,” Lancaster said.

“Here, as on an operational exercise, we have to make everything absolutely perfect,” he said. “There is no margin for error in performance.”

Named and launched by the Queen in 1953, the year of her coronation, the 5,769-ton, 12,000-horsepower ship has sailed hundreds of thousands of miles. It carried the royal family around the world in 1986.

The Britannia replaced the Victoria and Albert as the yacht that serves as the monarch’s residence overseas or in home waters, a tradition dating back to 1660, when King Charles II was presented with a yacht by the Dutch.

The luxurious yacht is also listed as a hospital ship and was ordered into service by the Queen to perform that function during the 1982 Falklands War in the south Atlantic.

It has undergone several refittings, said Lancaster. “But as ships go, it is an old vessel,” he said.

The royal yacht does indeed have an old world charm, with varnished railings and polished brasswork.

Black-and-white and color photographs of British royalty dating back to the turn of the century adorn the white walls, along with such items as a whale bone picked up by the Duke of Edinburgh on Deception Island in 1957, sharks’ teeth swords from Kiribati, kris from Malaysia and golden daggers from the Middle East.

Long after the sun set on the British Empire, Britannia still rules the waves--doing a splendid public relations job.