A new ‘Britannia’ style flagship may rule the waves again
A 90-year-old millionaire thinks a new Britannia flagship could generate billions for Britain.
Britain needs a new Britannia-style “national flagship” that the Prince and Princess of Wales could use to visit Commonwealth countries and generate “billions” in trade, according to a 90-year-old millionaire.
Britannia was decommissioned after its final visit to Hong Kong in 1997 but Chancellor Rachel Reeves has been urged to get behind plans for a new vessel to champion our
seafaring nation on the world stage.
Ian Maiden, who says he has invested more than £500,000 in the project, is excited at the thought of the future King and Queen arriving at destinations such as Mumbai in a modern ship that showcases the best of British design.
He said his team’s design was “oven-ready to enable a shipyard of choice to start cutting steel without delay”.
“It would be newsworthy beyond belief. This Government contract would be a starting gun for existing plans to revive lost employment in the shipbuilding industry,” he said.
Mr Maiden, who made his fortune in outdoor advertising, led a team that submitted a design after then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced plans in 2021 for a vessel that would reflect Britain’s “burgeoning status as a great, independent maritime trading nation”.The competition was cancelled in 2022 amid criticism from MPs and concern money would be better spent boosting defence capabilities.
But in a letter to the Chancellor, Mr Maiden says there is “realistic potential” for the “capital build cost to be covered by the private sector”.
He describes the project as an “opportunity for patriotism” and estimates it would cost around £300million. This would not be a royal yacht, he says, but would have a “very different function” in promoting British enterprise.
He is confident that the ship would raise “billions” in investment into the UK and boost employment. It is claimed that approximately £3billion in trade deals was secured through events on Britannia between 1991 and 1995.
Mr Maiden said: “This was a ship not intended for that purpose but the magnetic appeal and news-gathering potential of a ship impressed me.”
