Yachtsmen take barge for a spin

The Queen’s former yachtsmen have carried out sea trials on the Royal Yacht Britannia’s Royal Barge, before its role in the monarch’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations later this year.

Britannia’s barge will be at the head of the royal procession a thousand boats for the Thames Diamond Jubilee pageant on 3 June. It will carry the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh to the pageant barge The Spirit of Chartwell, flanked by two of Britannia’s escort boats. The “Yotties”, the Queen’s one-time Royal Yachtsmen, will crew the boats, and the last coxswain of the barge, Peter Young, will take the helm of the Royal Barge.

Yesterday the Yotties returned to Britannia to practice on the barge and escort boats in the harbour at Ocean Terminal in Edinburgh.