Britannia sailed on her maiden voyage from
Portsmouth to
Grand Harbour,
Malta, departing on 14 April and arriving on 22 April 1954. She carried
Prince Charles and
Princess Anne to Malta in order for them to meet the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh at the end of the royal couple's Commonwealth tour. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh embarked on
Britannia for the first time in
Tobruk on 1 May 1954. in Canada, en route to Chicago in 1959, as part of the celebration for the opening of the
Saint Lawrence Seaway , 1977 On 20 July 1959,
Britannia sailed the newly opened
Saint Lawrence Seaway en route from Canada to
Chicago, where she docked, making the Queen the first British monarch to visit the city. U.S. president
Dwight D. Eisenhower was aboard
Britannia for part of this cruise; Presidents
Gerald Ford,
Ronald Reagan, and
Bill Clinton were welcomed aboard in later years. Anne and
Mark Phillips took their honeymoon cruise aboard the ship in 1973; Charles would do the same with
Diana in 1981. The ship evacuated over 1,000 refugees from the civil war in
Aden in 1986. The vessel sailed to Canada in 1991 and made a port of call in
Toronto and
Kingston, Ontario. HMY
Britannia, when on royal duties, was escorted by a Royal Navy warship. The yacht was a regular sight at
Cowes Week in early August and, usually, for the remainder of the month, was home to the Queen and her family for an annual cruise around the islands off the west coast of Scotland (known as the "Western Isles Tour"). 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 .
Decommissioning In 1994, the
Conservative government announced the yacht's retirement: In January 1997, the government committed itself to replacing the Royal Yacht if reelected. The timing of the announcement, close to a
general election, was controversial;
The Guardian Weekly called it "part of a populist appeal to wavering Tory voters in the run-up to the general election" and reported that the Queen was "furious" that the Royal Family was "dragged into the centre of the election campaign, just as it is fighting to restore its public image."
Sir Edward Heath publicly objected to the government's handling of the issue, stating "The
Conservative Party above all must be an honourable party. And I don't believe the actions that have been taken are honourable ones and should never have been taken in this way." The government argued that the cost was justified by its role in
foreign policy and promoting British interests abroad, particularly through conferences held by
British Invisibles, formerly the Committee on Invisible Exports. It was estimated by the Overseas Trade Board that events held on board the yacht helped raise £3 billion for
HM Treasury between 1991 and 1995 alone. The
Labour opposition announced it would not commit the use of public funds for a replacement vessel for at least the first two years of any new Labour government. After its election victory in May 1997, the new government considered multiple options for the future of a royal yacht, but concluded in October of that year that
Britannia would not be replaced: The Royal Yacht's final foreign mission was to convey the last
Governor of Hong Kong,
Chris Patten, and the Prince of Wales back from
Hong Kong after
its handover to the People's Republic of China on 1 July 1997.
Britannia was decommissioned on 11 December 1997. The Queen, normally undemonstrative in public, was reported to have cried at the decommissioning ceremony that was attended by most of the senior members of the Royal Family. ==Visitor attraction==