The christening of The Royal Yacht Britannia serves as a cheeky season opener to The Crown. Black-and-white Pathé Information–fashion footage reveals a soon-to-be-crowned Queen Elizabeth II (Claire Foy) cheered on by shipbuilders as she launches her new 412-foot yacht. “I hope that this brand-new vessel, like your brand-new queen, will show to be reliable and fixed. Able to weathering any storm,” she says in regards to the royal alternative for the Victoria and Albert III. By the sequence’ season finale, set 44 years later, each the sovereign and the floating palace she christened Britannia can have hit tough seas—the price of repairing the creaky previous vessel and the trendy position of the monarchy each in query. In the end, the yacht that undertook 968 official voyages everywhere in the world, internet hosting dignitaries—together with 13 US presidents—at receptions and banquets, was dry-docked close to Edinburgh, Scotland, the place it continues to be a preferred vacationer attraction. Listed here are a few of the most buoyant details in regards to the palace the Queen famously stated was “the one place the place I can actually loosen up.”
A less-is-more aesthetic
In a nod to the nation’s post-war austerity, Elizabeth scaled again the design of the ship that her father, King George VI, had commissioned simply two days earlier than he died. Fairly than following the opulent plan laid out by the Scottish agency McInnes Gardner & Companions, she opted for the understated magnificence envisioned by architect Sir Hugh Casson, who described “operating a garden mower over the Louis XVIl adornments” in favor of straightforward white partitions, lilac-gray carpeting, and “a little bit of gilding in grand locations.” Elizabeth and her husband, Prince Phillip, had been stated to have personally chosen the furnishings—a lot of it, together with linens, recycled from the Victoria and Albert—materials (florals, chintz, toile), and work.
Some issues borrowed, one thing blue
