RN Concept Designs: HMY(R), Replacement Royal Yacht

Pardon me, I am talking of the passive systems used to defeat some guided weapons. I am well aware of the GC, just not clear enough. Mea Culpa.
 
Foo Fighter said:
Pardon me, I am talking of the passive systems used to defeat some guided weapons. I am well aware of the GC, just not clear enough. Mea Culpa.
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I'm sorry. I actually meant to delete that bit but my finger slipped. Mea culpa as well.
 
The "Hospital Ship" role for Britannia assumed back in 1953 the sort of traditional global war that soon became obsolete with the H Bomb.
In fact this gave Britannia the secondary role she had until 1990.


In 1953 air travel was riskier and more uncomfortable than it is today. Such arguments were already out of date when the RAF got its VC10s in 1964.

A new Royal Yacht has come out of the same playpen as the Scotland-Ulster bridge.
 
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My cousin likes to remenice about the days when he was on the RCMP's VIP Protection Squad. He has fond memories of sailing along the Saint Lawrence River aboard HMS Britannia. After an ad hoc game of baseball, two young princes brought cold drinks for the adults.
 
PMN1 said:
Currently floating around on twitter :)

View attachment 656421

Just missing the dock to part the speedboats.......
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More images here, BTW: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/wokdY

Particularly loving the ones where the flight deck lifts up and flips over to become a golf course.

thomas-nicolaas-noahs-twin-016.jpg
 
Plans for this new 'British Flagship' may hit the rocks soon. Under WTO rules agreed to by the UK, tenders for such civilian ships must be done internationally and selected without discrimination.
This new British ship could have to be built in South Korea or the Netherlands.... basically anywhere with a cheaper bid than the UK. :D

The only way around it would be to declare this as a warship (unarmed) which then puts restrictions on where she can go and makes her an even bigger target for protests or enemy action. :rolleyes:

Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts

Civilian shipbuilding not excluded from contracts that must be opened to global competition
www.ft.com www.ft.com
 
Nick said:
Plans for this new 'British Flagship' may hit the rocks soon. Under WTO rules agreed to by the UK, tenders for such civilian ships must be done internationally and selected without discrimination.
This new British ship could have to be built in South Korea or the Netherlands.... basically anywhere with a cheaper bid than the UK. :D

The only way around it would be to declare this as a warship (unarmed) which then puts restrictions on where she can go and makes her an even bigger target for protests or enemy action. :rolleyes:

Plan to build UK trade ship will break WTO agreement, warn experts

Civilian shipbuilding not excluded from contracts that must be opened to global competition
www.ft.com www.ft.com
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Actually, that should be easy enough. Just simply classify it as a emergency command ship for continuity of government and the like. It's predecessor also had that as one of her secondary roles, so no-one could really argue about it.
 
Well it seems it's not a 'Royal Yacht', officially it's a 'Trade Ship' - whatever the hell that is.
It seems from news reports that no government department is keen to fund it, the MoD seem to be footing the bill because the Defence Secretary Ben Wallace has responsibility for UK shipbuilding (not perhaps unfair given 95% of the industry only survives on military contracts).
The PM has assured everyone the procurement process will comply with international rules. But with the entire rationale being to support British shipbuilding (and industrial genius in general) it would be a severe slap in the face if the contract was awarded overseas. I foresee the moment a UK yard secures the order a lengthy queue of lawyers will descend on London.

I'm not sure how official the artwork is, looks more like Downing Street let an intern with an arts degree loose on making some PR images.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57556938
 
Looks like the political backlash has started already.
It may be that the MoD won't pay the full procurement bill, who will pay the operating costs is not confirmed yet.
The tittle-tattle seems to indicate the Treasury has kept out of it, which seem uncharacteristic of them!
The comment of sticking fake weapons on it is funny - though I suppose if it becomes a floating BAE Systems marquee they might want to put dummy weapon systems on it.

https://www.theguardian.com/politic...lly-populist-nonsense-says-ex-tory-chancellor
 
Floating National Command Authority?
 
If the MoD/Government want my opinion, I'd much rather ring-fence the money for a replacement for RFA Argus for when she inevitably wears out. You know, something actually useful? If industrial types want an afloat playground for when they are out whoring their wares, they can bloody pay for it!

HMY Britannia was great but her day is done and a replacement is NWOV!
 
A large flat deck for receptions and events. A sizeable hall/hospital and reception centre..A good communications fit and comfortable VIP accomm.
A clever MOD (laugh cough etc) could design an Argus replacement which could double as a floating Excel/Nightingale Hospital and refuge for the Monarch in a crisis.
 
Just occurred to me that the perfect design for Boris's Boat would be to slap a couple of outriggers on the Garden Bridge, or Boris Island*.

* For the non-Brits, notable failed projects from Boris's time as Mayor of London. Boris Island was his plan for a new London airport, with take-off and landing over a major wildfowl preserve....
 
DWG said:
Just occurred to me that the perfect design for Boris's Boat would be to slap a couple of outriggers on the Garden Bridge, or Boris Island*.

* For the non-Brits, notable failed projects from Boris's time as Mayor of London. Boris Island was his plan for a new London airport, with take-off and landing over a major wildfowl preserve....
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Maybe they'll name her "HMS Fail Upward" in his honor.
 
Regarding the 'Not a Royal Yacht', a little more info emerged last month in a article in the Irish edition [September 14th] of the Times (Superyacht firm to set a course for national flagship). I meant to make a post on this ages ago, argh! It has now been overtaken somewhat by current events.

Burgess Yachts appears to my mind at least to have the inside track to becoming the prime contractor on the project, having received a £100,000 external consultancy contract 'for the provision of specialist advice and knowledge of the yacht sector to support MOD shipbuilding'. Originally the term 'national flagship' did not appear in the contract notice, apparently so that it wouldn't show up in searches in the hope of keeping it under wraps as long as possible. Burgess Yachts for those who may not be familiar with the company is a noted (and highly regarded) British builder of so-called 'mega-yachts'. (EDIT: This bit of info was well out of date. See MihoshiK's post below.)

Two other firms have also received external consultancy contracts on the project, with the combined cost of all three contracts being £330,000 as of the date of the article. The Royal Institute of British Architects is one of them, providing architectural services. The other contract is with the law firm DLA Piper, for the provision of legal advice (I suspect that will have raised a few eyebrows here and there).

Tellingly (and rather annoyingly) the government appear to have to snubbed the Royal Corps Of Naval Constructors in this matter. If one has any in-house expertise on a subject, especially one as fraught with both political and technical risk as this project is shaping up to be, they should use it and not unnecessarily waste money on external consultants. Though, apart from the political establishment's extremely bad habit of ignoring the RCNC in recent decades, the government might have been afraid that, given the late Queen's rather lukewarm (at best) attitude to moving ahead with such project in what were already uncertain times, the RCNC would have loyally dragged their feet on the project, if not outright sabotaged it. (Reportedly the now King Charles III was/is just as unenthusiastic about the project, as is the new Prince of Wales.)

Another reason that the project was suffering such a backlash in both Royal circles and elsewhere was that the national flagship was apparently directly competing for funding with the RN's planned 'oceanographic surveillance ship' intended to help protect vital undersea cable links, pipelines, etc., leading to the latter project having ended up in a state of semi-hibernation at best, if we take certain public statements at face value. However, in a development that has only taken place in the last twelve hours, said vessel, now known as the 'Multi-Role Ocean Survey Ship - Seabed Warfare variant' is suddenly once again a priority for the MOD and government. Just what this will mean in the medium to long term for Project Leith aka the trade and investment ship aka the national flagship is unclear. Especially given that the new ship (planned to be an 'off the shelf' procurement because of the increased urgency of the requirement) is now part of a two ship class that will require a completely bespoke second ship for 'deep water military data gathering'.

Going back to the Times article, a spokesman for Burgess Yachts said at the time that 'it would be bringing 50 years of knowledge and experience in the yachting sector to the project, but declined to comment on specifics, citing a non-disclosure agreement'.
 
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I have to point out that Burgess is not a "builder", it's a management/sales/consultancy firm. They're iirc not an engineering firm, and they certainly don't own any shipyards.

This sounds to me like someone is paying them to look for viability and maybe project management. Of a yacht, which is their bread and butter. That's not a snub of the Royal Corps Of Naval Constructors, that's picking people who literaly do yacht building management for a living. And they'll still need to get naval engineers etc. onboard, because they're not.
 
Thought Burgess owned at least one shipyard, or was I thinking of another company?

EDIT: Doing a quick search, it seems that Burgess works with Lürssen in Germany these days. That might end up throwing yet another cat among the pigeons.

EDIT2: And not just Lürssen: https://www.burgessyachts.com/en/build-a-yacht#:~:text=Based in Germany, Lürssen is,of yachts from 50-200m. But no in-house or otherwise British yards, at least not in the present day.

EDIT3: Correction, one British yard works with them, Pendennis, though they seem to specialise in smaller high end yachts.
 
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Grey Havoc said:
ukdefencejournal.org.uk

New Royal Yacht project likely to be scrapped

The project to build the new National Flagship, what many refer to as the new 'Royal Yacht', is now unlikely to proceed, according to reports.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk ukdefencejournal.org.uk
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With the budget and various industrial limitations, this yacht was going to be very, small, shabby and unimpressive by mega-yacht standards. The UK didn’t have the very specific supplier base to fit out a mega-yacht, let alone to build one economically.

Charles III is popular enough at this point, so this isn’t a commentary on the monarch as much as bowing to financial and practical realities of the modern UK.
 
TinWing said:
Grey Havoc said:
ukdefencejournal.org.uk

New Royal Yacht project likely to be scrapped

The project to build the new National Flagship, what many refer to as the new 'Royal Yacht', is now unlikely to proceed, according to reports.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk ukdefencejournal.org.uk
Click to expand...
With the budget and various industrial limitations, this yacht was going to be very, small, shabby and unimpressive by mega-yacht standards. The UK didn’t have the very specific supplier base to fit out a mega-yacht, let alone to build one economically.

Charles III is popular enough at this point, so this isn’t a commentary on the monarch as much as bowing to financial and practical realities of the modern UK.
Click to expand...
Didn't Charles III also say he was planning on cutting down royal expenses? In any case, it seems the UK government is going to institute austerity measures. Funding a yacht would be a rather obvious inconsistency.
 
It's just not the right time for this type of project, a good way to celebrate when we get ouyt of it thouogh. A national pride concept.
 
The two private consortia bidding for the work were told this morning that the project is being axed. An announcement is expected from the Ministry of Defence as soon as Monday afternoon.

There was hope today that at least one of the final bids can now attract private funding.

The decision is the first major cut in spending ahead of the Autumn Statement which is set to axe tens of billions from government spending on Thursday next week.

'Sad but inevitable'​

One source close to the project told The Telegraph the scheme could not be justified given the stress on the defence budget from the war in Ukraine: "This is sad news but it was inevitable given the war in Ukraine. The business case was there but like so many good projects it cannot be progressed at this time."

Two British companies - Harland & Wolff and Houlder Ltd - had been battling it out to design the new ship from a long list of 19 schemes.

The new flagship had been slated to launch "in the last quarter of 2024", entering service in late 2025.

It would have dwarfed the Royal Yacht Britannia in both bulk and manpower, with a minimum of 11,000 tonnes and requiring just 70 crew.

This compared to HMY Britannia - controversially decommissioned by Tony Blair - which weighs nearly 6,000 tonnes and required 250 yachtsmen to sail.
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www.telegraph.co.uk

National flagship project championed by Boris Johnson is sunk by Rishi Sunak

Exclusive: £250m project to drive trade deals in post-Brexit Britain is dead in the water
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk
 
As is now well known the Britannia and the RFA Engadine were the UK's equivalent of Air Force One and would embark the Monarch and Home Secretary to ensure UK government could continue if Whitehall were destroyed.
It seems that dispersal of cabinet ministers and members of the royal family by air to New Zealand and other remote but allied countries is cheaper and more practical than hiding ships in Scottish lochs.
 
A minimum of 11,000 tonnes! A Type 45 is only 8,500 tonnes fully loaded! Just 70 crew is not far off a Type 31 crew requirement either.
They were certainly going for a mega yacht designed to induce the jealousy of any billionaire/Sheikh. £250 million would have barely covered the bill.

A 'good' business case? Well if Ministerial jollies (beats flying a Chinook from Manston to Dover) and five annual free Prime Ministerial Caribbean holidays is a business case maybe...
 
1635yankee said:
TinWing said:
Grey Havoc said:
ukdefencejournal.org.uk

New Royal Yacht project likely to be scrapped

The project to build the new National Flagship, what many refer to as the new 'Royal Yacht', is now unlikely to proceed, according to reports.
ukdefencejournal.org.uk ukdefencejournal.org.uk
Click to expand...
With the budget and various industrial limitations, this yacht was going to be very, small, shabby and unimpressive by mega-yacht standards. The UK didn’t have the very specific supplier base to fit out a mega-yacht, let alone to build one economically.

Charles III is popular enough at this point, so this isn’t a commentary on the monarch as much as bowing to financial and practical realities of the modern UK.
Click to expand...
Didn't Charles III also say he was planning on cutting down royal expenses? In any case, it seems the UK government is going to institute austerity measures. Funding a yacht would be a rather obvious inconsistency.
Click to expand...

The Royal Family had made it clear that they did not want this ship, which is why the government of the day tried to rebrand it as a "trade embassy" rather than "Royal Yacht."

Remarkably daft idea. Do you see any of the countries that are eating Britain's lunch on trade doing it with yacht diplomacy? No, you do not. This was always about Boris trying to reinvent some imaginary British Empire cachet, not a realistic solution to a real problem.
 
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