 Britannia in the 1890s | |
| History | |
|---|---|
 United Kingdom | |
| Name | Britannia |
| Owner |
|
| Ordered | 1892 |
| Builder | D&W Henderson Shipyard Ltd |
| Yard number | 366 |
| Launched | 20 April 1893 |
| Fate | Scuttled (10 July 1936) at St Catherine's Deep near the Isle of Wight |
| General characteristics | |
| Class & type | British Big-classgaff-riggedcutter |
| Displacement | 221 tons |
| Length | 121.5 ft (37.0 m) |
| Beam | 23.66 ft (7.21 m) |
| Height | 164 ft (50 m) |
| Draught | 15 ft (4.6 m) |
| Sail plan | 10,328 sq ft (959.5 m2) (1893) |
His Majesty's YachtBritannia was agaff-riggedcutter built in 1893 forRYS CommodoreAlbert Edward, Prince of Wales. She served both himself and his sonKing George V with a long racing career.
Britannia was ordered in 1892 by the Prince of Wales and designed byGeorge Lennox Watson. She was a near sister ship to the Watson-designedValkyrie II which challenged for the 1893America's Cup. Details of the commission were arranged on the Prince's behalf by William Jamieson who represented him and liaised closely with Watson. The build cost was £8,300 and likeValkyrie II,Britannia was built at theD&W Henderson shipyard in Partick on theRiver Clyde. With two such highly important commissions underway in the same yard, Watson delegated his protégéJames Rennie Barnett to oversee both yachts.
Britannia was launched on 20 April 1893, a week ahead ofValkyrie II and joined a fleet of first class cutters that was growing fast as others followed the royal lead. In a highly competitive fleet,Britannia soon set about achieving the race results which would eventually establish her as the most successful racing yacht of all time.
By the end of her first year's racing,Britannia had scored thirty-three wins from forty-three starts. In her second season, she won all seven races for the first class yachts on theFrench Riviera, and then beat the 1893 America's Cup defenderVigilant in home waters. In the Mount's Bay Regatta of 28 July 1894 theVigilant owned by Jay Gould, director of the American Cable Company, was piloted by Benjamin Nicholls of Penzance, and the Prince of Wales's yachtBritannia was piloted by Ben's brother Philip Nicholls.Britannia won by just over seven minutes. People came by train from all over the south west to watch this race. Both brothers were Trinity House pilots of Penzance.
Despite a lull in big yacht racing after 1897,Britannia served as a trial horse forSir Thomas Lipton's first America's Cup challengerShamrock, and later passed on to several owners in a cruising trim with raised bulwarks. In 1920,[1]King George V triggered the revival of the "Big class" by announcing that he would refitBritannia for racing. AlthoughBritannia was the oldest yacht in the circuit, regular updates to her rig kept her a most successful racer throughout the 1920s. In 1931, she was converted to theJ class with abermuda rig, but despite the modifications, her performance towindward declined dramatically. Her last race was atCowes in 1935. During her racing career she had won 231 races and took another 129 flags.
King George V's dying wish was for his beloved yacht to follow him to the grave. On 10 July 1936, afterBritannia had been stripped of herspars and fittings, her hull was towed out toSt Catherine's Deep near theIsle of Wight, and she was sunk byHMS Winchester, commanded by CaptainW.N.T. Beckett RN.
Five known examples ofBritannia's racing flags are preserved, one presented byPhilip Hunloke to theRoyal Cornwall Yacht Club, in whose regattasBritannia was often a competitor between 1894 and 1935, the second at theRoyal Northern and Clyde Yacht Club at Rhu and the third at theRoyal St. George Yacht Club, which held two regattas inKingstown for the first season of the RYA linear rating rule in 1896.Britannia's skipper William G. Jameson had lost both races to the newMeteor II andAilsa. The fourth known flag is held in the vexillology collection in theNational Maritime Museum at Greenwich.[2] The fifth example is now on display at the K1 Britannia base inCowes onThe Isle of Wight, on loan from the family of a former member of the crew who served as Yeoman Signaller on Britannia during the 1931–1933 racing seasons inclusive.
Britannia's 51-foot (16 m) long gaff, the king's chair, tiller, some mast hoops, blocks and rigging, anchor chain and clock are preserved in the Sir Max Aitken Museum in Cowes High Street and the remains of her spinnaker boom are atCarisbrooke Castle, also on the Isle of Wight. The spinnaker boom was given for use as a flag pole on the keep (where it twice suffered lightning damage), and the present flagpole is a fibreglass replica. In an episode ofAntiques Roadshow from Pembroke Castle, broadcast in April 2017, a relative of a crew member brought photographs, and a damask tablecloth and some cutlery from the yacht, to be appraised.
K1 Britannia is a project to create a replica of the original vessel where K1 designates theBritannia's sail number when she was converted to theJ class in 1931. In 1993, a syndicate headed by Norwegian Sigurd Coates purchased a stake in the Solombala shipyard inArkhangelsk in order to create a replica of theBritannia in pinewood and laminated oak.[3] Between 2002 and 2006, the shipyard changed hands several times whilst joinery was nearing completion. In 2006, she was rechristenedЦарь Пётр (Tsar Pyotr; "Peter the Great") and held back for NOK25,000,000 until 2009, when a Russian court ordered the hull to be launched and delivered by the shipyard to her original owner Sigurd Coates.[4] The story behind this 16-year saga was captured on film by director and producer Ann Coates and released in a documentary called The Dream of Britannia.
Having finally taken possession of theBritannia replica, Sigurd Coates berthed the hull in Son for outfitting. As this period coincided with the economic recession, work was stalled and Coates decided to sell the boat to the K1 Britannia Trust in the UK. This charity was established with the goal of completing Britannia and using her as a flagship for charitable causes around the world.
The replicaBritannia was towed to the South Boats yard inEast Cowes in 2012.[5][6] The Trust invested in the scaffolding, cradle, tools and workmen required and work began on the final stages of theBritannia build. This came to a halt in 2014 when the Southboats yard was declared bankrupt.
In September 2018 the K1 Britannia Trust announced that it is to build an entirely new replica. This decision followed surveys of the existing replica and a full scope of the work still to be undertaken. The conclusion was reached that in the interests of sustainability, the new replica would have an all-aluminium hull and keel, a keel-stepped carbon mast, box boom and bowsprit, carbon continuous rigging, and a hybrid propulsion package.
Previously Prince Albert Edward had acquired the 205-ton schoonerHildegarde in 1876, which he had replaced with the 103-ton cutterFormosa (Michael E. Ratsey, 1878) in 1879, and the 216-ton schoonerAline (Benjamin Nicholson, 1860) in 1881.[7]
Britannia faced many opponents in her 43-year career. The most notable were:
| year | owner | starts | first prizes | other prizes | total prizes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1893 | Albert Edward, Prince of Wales | 43 | 24 | 9 | 33 |
| 1894 | 48 | 36 | 2 | 38 | |
| 1895 | 50 | 38 | 2 | 40 | |
| 1896 | 58 | 14 | 10 | 24 | |
| 1897 | 20 | 10 | 2 | 12 | |
| 1898 | Messrs. Rucker, Cooper, et al. | ||||
| 1899 | Albert Edward, Prince of Wales | 6 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 1899 | Sir Richard Williams-Bulkeley, 12th Baronet | ||||
| 1900 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| 1901- -1910 | King Edward VII | used only for cruising | |||
| 1911 | King George V | used only for cruising | |||
| 1912 | 10 | 5 | 0 | 5 | |
| 1913 | 13 | 8 | 1 | 0 | |
| 1914- -1919 | laid up during the Great War | ||||
| 1920 | 23 | 7 | 14 | 11 | |
| 1921 | 28 | 9 | 7 | 16 | |
| 1922 | re-conditioning | ||||
| 1923 | 26 | 11 | 11 | 22 | |
| 1924 | 19 | 7 | 5 | 12 | |
| 1925 | 36 | 6 | 6 | 12 | |
| 1926 | 23 | 4 | 7 | 11 | |
| 1927 | 24 | 8 | 8 | 16 | |
| 1928 | 34 | 9 | 10 | 19 | |
| 1929 | not fitted out | ||||
| 1930 | 26 | 5 | 5 | 10 | |
| 1931 | 29 | 6 | 7 | 13 | |
| 1932 | 32 | 9 | 14 | 23 | |
| 1933 | 39 | 12 | 12 | 24 | |
| 1934 | 27 | 3 | 7 | 10 | |
| 1935 | 20 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |
| total | 635 | 231 | 129 | 360 | |
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