Queensferry Crossing, HMS Queen Elizabeth and all things Royal Navy

Remember it well. It was a school day, the TV was on at the end of the hall at lunchtime and the return of Hermes was live on TV.

Suddenly, on screen, appeared a white yacht with a group of ladies waving their bra's in the air and in full frontal glory, welcoming the boys back home.

I can still see the face of Mr England, the 4th year teacher practically sprinting across the hall to turn the TV off.

LOL
 
Here you go Brogan. You may need to zoom in.

LOL

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USS Iowa entering Portsmouth harbour. I suspect all the little boats would not be allowed out to greet a warship now.

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They still would but subject to distancing rules as listed in the Queens Harbour Masters conduct of passage which is probably about 100m but could be less, they are mainly for safety as these ships don't stop on a 5p piece and the newer drive systems are not so controlled as good old steam and loss of rudder could cause damage before they can stop.
We have 200m exclusion zone up here for the base but less in the loch when under way and the narrows are no go in the dredged channel when ship movement is underway
 
FB said:
USS Iowa entering Portsmouth harbour
Click to expand
The ships behind her help show the age of that picture with a broad beamed Leander on the right, HMS Achilles I think and another inboard of her and then a Sea Wolf / Exocet Leander on the left, possibly HMS Charybdis but I can't quite make out her pennant number. There are some more ships at the top left of the picture but I'll have to use my computer to have a look at the photo because I can't quite see clearly enough on my phone.

It does look a bit like one of them could be HMS Challenger but I'm not certain.

I visited Iowa when I was in the Sea Cadets when she was alongside in Gibraltar in 1989. Impressive bits of kit but an absolute slum inside. The captain walked around the ship with his own armed guard.
 
The Leander on the left is Andromeda, and right Diomedes and the year is 1989, realised they were fairly late as the yachts were mostly GRP with wedge shaped cabin tops which were from 1979 vintage
 
Prince of Wales on the way out of Portsmouth harbour today. Can a ship named after a man be called her?

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Yes, dozens of US Navy vessels are named for former commanders etc.
The vessels are referred to as “she”.
 
"The Prince of Wales on her way out of Portsmouth harbour" just doesn't sound right though does it :-D
 
On a similar note, about 10 years ago, the Royal Navy was massively overstretched. Very few of our ships were at sea and those that were had back to back tours of duty. There were redundancies and shortages of manpower and equipment everywhere.

What, among all of this was the 2nd Sea Lords highest priority?

(The Second Sea Lord is directly responsible for Naval Manpower)

Yeah, you've guessed it. It was changing the traditional Royal Navy after dinner toasts.

After a mess dinner, depending on the day of the week, there is a traditional toast. Sunday for example is always "Absent Friends"

The toast that the head of Naval Personnel particularly took a dislike to was the Saturday night toast. This was "Wives and Sweethearts" after which all the men in the room would respond "May they never meet".

This has now become "our families" because women serve at sea and we don't want to cause offence. The instruction to make the change included all sorts of angry language about the consequences of using the traditional toasts.

I kid you not.

At a time when the RN was so short of engineering rates they actually borrowed 10 marine engineers from the US coast guard, recruited civilians to serve as engineers at sea on fixed term contracts and offered bounties of up to £30000 for engineers who had recently left the Navy, including those who had been made redundant to return, and that was the first thing on the 2nd Sea Lords mind.

So it very much wouldn't surprise me is the official webpage for HMS Prince of Wales has (It / that) after its name.
 
The 2nd Sea Lord and his liaison team were and probably still are just a propaganda exercise, it is supposed to be a question and answer session but the answers are always sit down Chief we have evaluated the topic and we are right, should the question not fit their criteria. I questioned the decision to use plastic No8's and overalls in General Service, they originated from nuclear submarines where fires are rare especially from action, I said they should issue Proban overalls as if anyone wearing the plastic ones were involved in a fire or explosion would wear them for life, told to sit down, argued and threatened with disciplinary action, then came the Falklands less than 6 months later.
I would suggest it is an organisation or team no one would miss.
 
Regarding the USS Iowa there seems to be some confusion, some sites state 1989 and others 1986 whether she visited twice you may know cider_and_toast but if Diomede had been sold in 89 then the 89 caption was incorrect, the same photo has been listed as both 89 and 86, so 86 it is
LOL
 

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