On a new royal yacht

 Over the weekend various papers reported on ideas to build a new royal yacht as a tribute to the recently deceased Prince Philip. Given his naval service, a ship named after him would be a good legacy. 

Interestingly, one of the Navy's newest ships, the survey vessel HMS Magpie, shares its name with the Duke's only command. In addition, it was rumored that the second of the CVA-01 class carriers planned in the '60s would have been called HMS Duke of Edinburgh, and there was a cruiser of that name in the Edwardian era. 

Currently, it is planned that the eighth type 26 frigate will be called Edinburgh, so the simplest solution could be to change her name to Duke of Edinburgh. This will give 4 ships named after royalty in the 2030s in addition to the currently built carriers Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales and planed SSBN King George VI.

As for building a new royal yacht, there is some merit to the idea. Currently, the Norwegian, Danish and Dutch royal families still have them so given our naval heritage and current desire to expand the navy and shipbuilding industry there are good arguments for one, especially if it had dual roles as either a Primary Casualty Receiving/Hospital Ship (a role currently fulfilled by RFA Argus, due to leave service next year) or a training ship for sea cadets, URNU members, and reservists. 

I visited the former royal yacht Britannia on a trip to Edinburgh some years ago, and as a child saw her sail up the Thames on time. These ships have a good function as national symbols, it is claimed Britannia earned a lot of trade for the UK over her career and is a good form of soft power for a country like ours to use. Proposals for a new RY have been made a number of times since she was decommissioned in 1997, most recently last year.

The main counterargument is the cost, especially in the current climate. As an aside, it does annoy me that this sort of expenditure is the only type the left get riled up about, complaining about how underfunded the NHS and social budgets are (never mind the fact that these are the majority of HMG's spending, dwarfing the defense budget). The best way to get around this would be to crowdfund the yacht, at £100-200million that would require roughly 20 million people to donate £10 each. No doubt firms and other groups could also contribute either with cash, materials, or service (with the added bonus of good PR that could be used for advertising purposes ('we donated the furnishings', etc)

Overall then I think this would be a good project to proceed with and could be a fine tribute to the Duke. It has been suggested to name the new yacht HMY Duke of Edinburgh, but given his naval service, I would personally prefer to give his name to a wardship as mentioned above. Instead, I would suggest calling her Elizabeth and Phillip, similar to the previous RY's that bore the name Victoria and Albert. That way the new yacht would both honor their long marriage, but also pay tribute to her majesty when she too passes away to rejoin him. 

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