HMY BRITANNIA 8th January 2012

The Royal Yacht Britannia, one of Scotland's leading tourist attractions, closed on the 31st of December 2011 for one month, re-opening on 1st February 2012. The vessel is making the short trip to a neighbouring dry-dock for inspecting and repainting her hull below the waterline as she prepares for a big year ahead.

Whilst Britannia spent eleven days in the Leith dry-dock, to ensure that the iconic vessel looks her best for The Queen's Diamond Jubilee year, the attraction will close for the full month.

Bob Downie, Chief Executive of The Royal Yacht Britannia said 'Britannia was last in dry dock in May 1998 when she first arrived in Leith and ever since then we have been conscious that, like all ships, there would be a future requirement to take her out of water again and have her hull surveyed and repainted.

'That said, every year Britannia is subject to a comprehensive independent maintenance survey and divers also inspect the hull to ensure that all is in good order, and whilst there is no particular need to undertake this work now our insurance company is keen that their own surveyors can inspect the vessel, with a view to not having to dry dock Britannia again for another 20-25 years.

'Although we will spend only a fortnight in dry dock, we will take advantage of the down-time to scaffold the funnel and masts so that they can also be repainted, thus avoiding this unsightly work taking place whilst open to visitors'

Britannia is looking forward to a busy year with The Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations and 2012 is also the 60th Anniversary of the laying down of Britannia's keel. Work began on the ship at John Brown's shipyard in Clydebank in June 1952 and she was launched in April 1953.

Last year was one of the award-winning attraction's busiest years with over 275,000 visitors, a 12% increase on the previous year, a year that also saw Britannia receive the highest quality mark (95.85%) ever awarded by the Scottish tourist board - Visit Scotland.

Britannia will reopen to visitors on 1st February 2012.

With the dry dock now empty ready for her hull painting, I was lucky enough to be able to enter the dry dock (big thank you  to Phil and the gang) and get these amazing shots:

HMY BRITANNIA 7th January 2012

Following on from Britannia's mishap the previous day she is seen here in the dry dock with the water pumping out of the dry dock.

It took some 9 hours to empty the dock.

HMY BRITANNIA 6th January 2012

On the 6^th January 2012 an emergency effort to pump water out of the Royal Yacht Britannia was rectified the list it developed while being moved to be repainted.

The yacht was tilting on its starboard side after developing a leak in a door seal. I spoke to an official the next day who confirmed it was 14 degrees.

The leak was discovered when officials noticed the ship was tilting and went to alter ballast levels, to bring the leak and ballast back under control. Four fire engines and two units from Lothian and Borders Fire and Rescue Service.  Hawick Fire Service were also called to the Britannia with a high-volume pump on what they said was an emergency call.   It took around 20 fire fighters six hours to pump the water from Britannia which then allowed her to continue her journey slightly later than planned to the neighbouring Imperial Dry Dock, Leith, for work to be carried out.

Britannia Trust Chief executive Bob Downie said: "When we were removing the final mooring ropes this morning the ship moved several degrees to starboard.  "This meant that new access watertight doors to our pontoons were below the water level. There has been a leak in the seals on those doors which was accentuating the list. Because we have had limited shore power we asked the fire brigade to provide us with some assistance in correcting the ship's ballast.  This has caused a delay in the process.”

He added: "Moving the yacht obviously took longer than expected after suffering a setback but it is now mission complete. It all went smoothly once the water was pumped off the boat and it started to move. So, all's well that ends well."

There was no other damage to the yacht, which travelled more than a million miles during her career and has a top speed of 22.5 knots.  It was the first time the yacht has been moved from its berth in Edinburgh in almost 14 years.   The ship is due to reopen to the public on 1 February after a thorough survey and repainting of her hull, funnel and masts and a cost of around £100,000.

Work began on the ship at John Brown's shipyard in Clydebank in June 1952 and was launched in April 1953. During her career, she conveyed the Queen, other members of the Royal family and dignitaries on almost 968 official voyages. She travelled 1,087,623 nautical miles, calling at more than 600 ports in 135 countries.  The Queen publicly shed a tear at her decommissioning ceremony in December 1997 after Tony Blair’s Labour government refused to replace her.

  

On 11 December 1997 Britannia was decommissioned and became a visitor attraction in Edinburgh after the city bid to become her new home.

Last year was one of the attraction's busiest years with more than 275,000 visitors, a 12% increase on the previous year. 

She is seen here starting her list:

HMS Portland

HMS Portland is the fastest and most fearless Type 23 frigate in the Royal Navy. She is also one of the youngest Type 23 frigates in the Royal Navy.  

Hms Portland was accepted into service by the Royal Navy on 15 December 2000 and was commissioned on 3 May 2001.  Present at the commissioning ceremony was Portland's sponsor Lady Brigstoke, wife of Admiral Sir John Brigstoke, a former Second Sea Lord, who had also launched the ship in 1999.

During sea trials Portland attained a top speed of 30.8 knots (57.0 km/h), the fastest speed attained by any Type 23 frigate.

In June 2011 she sailed to Edinburgh to take part in Armed Forces Day (See HERE and HERE for pics).  She is to be the first major warship in the Royal Navy to be commanded by a woman; Lt Cdr Sarah West will assume command of HMS Portland in April 2012 as Commander Sarah West.  She will take command of the ship at Rosyth during the later stages of this refit.

The ship’s last deployment was a seven-month deployment (March – November 2010).  During this deployment she visited the South Atlantic, South America, Eastern Pacific, Caribbean and West Africa spending 217 days away from her home port of Plymouth.  Her previous deployment was in 2009 when she was engaged in operations in the Gulf of Aden to deter pirates.

She is seen here approaching and passing under the Forth Bridges

Type 23 Frigate – HMS Kent

The Type 23 Frigate is a class of frigate built for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom. All the ships were first named after British Dukes, thus the class is also known as the Duke class. The first Type 23 was commissioned in 1989, and the sixteenth, HMS St Albans was launched in May 2000 and commissioned in June 2002. They form the majority of the Royal Navy's destroyer and frigate fleet.

Three of the frigates have been sold to Chile and serve with the Chilean Navy. The remaining thirteen remain in service with the Royal Navy.

HMS Kent has received 23 upgrades in a demanding refit, as well as undergoing a full programme of deep maintenance including structural repairs, renewal of hull coatings and refurbishment of all of her systems and equipment.

The 50 week contract was delivered on time by Babcock, who run the Rosyth dockyard, and required 295,000 man hours to see the overhaul of more than 500 pieces of equipment, the application of 15,000 litres of paint and the installation of 13km of cable.

Upgrades and improvements included the installation of Sonar 2087; a variable depth anti-submarine warfare system; a new Command System central to the ship’s fighting capability against air, surface and underwater threats; large and small gun replacements; filters to protect air supplies against nuclear, biological and chemical attack, and an air conditioning system which will stabilise conditions on board in the most extremes of temperatures.

HMS Kent is seen here departing Rosyth on post refit trials on Friday 11^th November 2011.

The assisting tugs were:

MT Deerhound

MT Fidra

Thetis Class Ocean Patrol Vessels

HDMS (Her Danish Majesty's Ship) Vædderen (F359) (Aries) is a Thetis-class ocean patrol vessel of the Royal Danish Navy. She is employed to exercise Danish sovereignty in waters around the Faeroe Islands and Greenland.

The Thetis-class ocean patrol vessels, also called Stanflex 3000, are a class of large patrol vessels built for the Royal Danish Navy. The class comprises four ships, all built and commissioned in the early 1990s. The ships' tasks are mainly maintenance of sovereignty, search and rescue, fishery inspection and support to local (mainly Greenlandic) authorities. The operation areas are normally Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, but the vessels also operate near Iceland on transit between Greenland and the Faeroe Islands, and near Denmark.

The ships each have double-skinned ice-reinforced hulls so that the ships can break through 80 centimetres (31 in) of solid ice. Thetis has undergone a conversion, first to participate in the CANUMAS-project, and later to become the fleet's flagship, a role that ended in September 2007. The Danish Navy has retrofitted the vessels with 12.7-millimetre (0.50 in) heavy machine guns, Stinger launchers and decoy launching systems. The ships can carry and use multiple Stanflex mission modules.

In the most common role (ocean patrol), the standard base crew is 47 persons and 16 conscripts, but in either command ship role or more warfare heavy roles, the base crew is expanded to 60 persons plus 4 aircrew for the Westland Lynx Mk.90B and one or two doctors. Accommodation is available for 101 personnel in all.

Vessels

Thetis	F357
Triton	F358
Vædderen	F359
Hvidbjørnen	F360

For further information and photographs of the class please click HERE  


She is seen arriving here at Leith I apologise for the poor quality of these images as my camera packed in after a few shots and the focus was not working correctly.

Archer Class Patrol Vessels

The Archer class (or P2000) is a class of patrol and training vessels in service with the Royal Navy, commonly referred to as a Fast Training Boat.  They are twin-shaft vessels with moulded glass-reinforced plastic hulls.

The Archers were initially used as Royal Navy patrol craft and as training tenders for the Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) and University Royal Naval Units (URNU). Four identical vessels were ordered for the Royal Naval Auxiliary Service (RNXS) as Example-class tenders. When that service was disbanded in 1994, the Examples were transferred to the Royal Navy for similar duties as their Archer-class brethren.  Until 2005, the 4 Examples were still painted with a black hull.

In 1998 two additional vessels (Raider and Tracker) of this design were commissioned into the Royal Navy as URNU training vessels to the two newest URNUs, serving Cambridge and Oxford Universities respectively. This brought the total of Archer class vessels in the Royal Navy to 16, of which 14 form the 1st Patrol Boat Squadron (formerly the Inshore Training Squadron), each one attached to an URNU (one per unit) under the command of a Lieutenant. The remaining 2 vessels (Pursuer and Dasher), having formed the Cyprus Squadron from 2003 to 2010, and URNU vessels before that, returned to the UK in April 2010 to form the Faslane Patrol Boat Squadron, performing security duties within HMNB Clyde - these can be identified by a number of pintle-mounted L7 7.62 mm GPMG machine guns and armour plating. Ranger and Trumpeter were also formerly allocated to the Gibraltar Squadron for guard ship and search and rescue duties, but were replaced by the dedicated Scimitar class. Unlike the remainder of the class, both these ships remain capable of being mounted with a 20mm cannon on the fo'c'sle.

Vessels

Archer	P264	Aberdeen
Biter	P270	Manchester
Smiter	P272	Glasgow
Pursuer	P273	HMNB Clyde
Tracker	P274	Oxford
Raider	P275	Bristol
Blazer	P279	Southampton
Dasher	P280	HMNB Clyde
Puncher	P291	London
Charger	P292	Liverpool
Ranger	P293	Sussex
Trumpeter	P294	Cambridge
Example	P165	Northumbrian
Explorer	P164	Yorkshire
Express	P163	Wales
Exploit	P167	Birmingham

For more information on the Archer class click HERE

HMS Archer is the first and lead ship of the Archer / P2000 class of Fast patrol Boat and is also known as "The Original and Best".

She is seen here in Leith