Fans of the Netflix drama series The Crown who waded into season five last fall noted scenes meant to be aboard the former royal yacht Britannia. Sadly, her presence in the story doesn’t celebrate the stately majesty of her classic lines or the impressions she made as she laid down more than a million nautical miles over her 44 years of service to the royal family and to Britain. In the series, she serves as a metaphor for the monarchy itself: in decline, out of date and in need of a refit.

In these days of surging populism, I suppose an argument could be made that a state yacht, no matter her value as a vehicle for projecting power—and for being a place of respite and privacy for her busy, coddled, celebrity users—might not fly with the rank and file. Unlike Air Force One, which does fly and accomplishes many of the same practical objectives and gets there a lot quicker, Britannia was a yacht, which, by most definitions, is fundamentally a luxury conveyance. And despite the good that state yachts may provide the nations in which they still operate, they can be a hard sell, especially when the public is footing the bill.

While much of Britain had begun to view the royal yacht as an expensive anachronism and a symbol of royal excess, Britannia was beloved by the Windsors and the sailors who served aboard her. She was particularly loved by Queen Elizabeth, who christened her in 1954 and was on hand, reportedly damp-eyed, for her decommissioning in 1997.

The 412-foot, 4,000-ton vessel sailed with a crew of 250 “yachtsmen,” plus officers and whoever needed to be on hand for service to the royals when they were aboard. Her annual running costs were in the many millions.

In one scene in the Netflix production, Queen Elizabeth, played by Imelda Staunton, hosts a meeting with then-Prime Minister John Major, presumably at Balmoral Castle in Scotland, after her annual Western Isles cruise. Prince Philip, a former Navy man, had calculated that the yacht needed a substantial refit estimated at more than $20 million. In the fictionalized account of the meeting, Elizabeth makes a pitch to Major for the British government to cover the costs. She asks how he’d come to Scotland for the meeting. He replied that he’d come by plane, then car.

“I’m a believer in coming by sea,” she tells him. “Instead of three hours door-to-door, it can take almost two weeks on the royal yacht. Wonderful way to decompress.” She goes on, citing Queen Victoria: “As my great-great-grandmother, who started the Western Isles tour, said, ‘Let time slow down so that one breathes freedom and peace, making one forget the world and its sad turmoil.’”

We get that, don’t we? Hear, hear.

In real life, Major is reported to have called such conversations “a barrel-load of nonsense.” But on the TV show, the prime minister’s response was cool, suggesting that Elizabeth should consider paying for the refit herself rather than passing along the burden to the British public. You could see the end coming. The Labour government that followed Major’s Conservative rule decided to decommission the yacht, which put an end to a tradition that began in 1660.

In the last episode of the season, Prince Charles—the man who would be king—is seen suggesting to Prime Minister Tony Blair that it was time to put Britannia out to pasture. “There’s no point in clinging to the past. We must be excited by the future,” the character says. Really?

Elizabeth knew, as do we all, the restorative value of time on the water, not to mention the unique privacy it provides. After decades of service, the last American presidential yacht, Sequoia, met a similar fate when Jimmy Carter ordered her sold to private interests in 1977. She’s subsequently been used for presidential meetings and events, but there hasn’t been a state-owned presidential yacht since, and likely won’t be.

Britannia is not the only yacht to star in season five. In episode one, Charles and Diana go on a strained Mediterranean anniversary holiday aboard the iconic Christina O (a stand-in for their real vacation yacht, Alexander). Later in the series, the Lürssen Titania has a cameo as a stand-in for Dodi Al Fayed’s father’s Codecasa, Jonikal.

Since Britannia’s decommissioning, at least two schemes have risen and fallen to restore the grand tradition of the British royal yacht. I say let them have their fun. Just make them bring their own single malt. Meanwhile, the beautiful Britannia enjoys a peaceful retirement as a tourist attraction in Edinburgh, Scotland, celebrated by nearly 400,000 annual visitors. Hear, hear. 

This article was originally published in the Spring 2023 issue.