Her Majesty's Yacht Britannia is the former Royal Yacht

Royal Yacht

A royal yacht is a ship used by a monarch or a royal family. If the monarch is an emperor the proper term is imperial yacht. Most of them are financed by the government of the country of which the monarch is head...

 of the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II. She was the 83rd such vessel since the restoration of King Charles II

Charles II of England

Charles II was monarch of the three kingdoms of England, Scotland, and Ireland.Charles II's father, King Charles I, was executed at Whitehall on 30 January 1649, at the climax of the English Civil War...

 in 1660. She is the second Royal yacht to bear the name, the first being the famous racing cutter

HMY Britannia (Royal Cutter Yacht)

His Majesty's Yacht Britannia was a gaff-rigged cutter built in 1893 for Commodore Albert Edward, Prince of Wales. She served him and his son, King George V, a long racing career.-Racing career:...

 built for The Prince of Wales

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Edward VII was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Emperor of India from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910...

 in 1893. She is now permanently moored as an exhibition ship at Ocean Terminal

Ocean Terminal, Edinburgh

Ocean Terminal in Leith, Edinburgh, Scotland is a shopping centre, designed by Sir Terence Conran.It is built on former industrial docklands on the north side of the city at the edge of the boundary between formerly separate ports of Newhaven and Leith. The land was formerly occupied by the Henry...

, Leith

Leith

-South Leith v. North Leith:Up until the late 16th century Leith , comprised two separate towns on either side of the river....

, Edinburgh

Edinburgh

Edinburgh is the capital city of Scotland, the second largest city in Scotland, and the eighth most populous in the United Kingdom. The City of Edinburgh Council governs one of Scotland's 32 local government council areas. The council area includes urban Edinburgh and a rural area...

, Scotland.
HMY

Her Majesty's Ship

Her or His Majesty's Ship is the ship prefix used for ships of the navy in some monarchies, either formally or informally.-HMS:* In the British Royal Navy, it refers to the king or queen of the United Kingdom as appropriate at the time...

 Britannia was built at the shipyard of John Brown & Co. Ltd

John Brown & Company

John Brown and Company of Clydebank was a pre-eminent Scottish marine engineering and shipbuilding firm, responsible for building many notable and world-famous ships, such as the , the , the , the , the , and the...

 in Clydebank

Clydebank

Clydebank is a town in West Dunbartonshire, in the Central Lowlands of Scotland. Situated on the north bank of the River Clyde, Clydebank borders Dumbarton, the town with which it was combined to form West Dunbartonshire, as well as the town of Milngavie in East Dunbartonshire, and the Yoker and...

, West Dunbartonshire

West Dunbartonshire

West Dunbartonshire is one of the 32 local government council areas of Scotland. Bordering onto the west of the City of Glasgow, containing many of Glasgow's commuter towns and villages as well as the city's suburbs, West Dunbartonshire also borders onto Argyll and Bute, Stirling, East...

, UK, being launched by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Elizabeth II is the constitutional monarch of 16 sovereign states known as the Commonwealth realms: the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, Barbados, the Bahamas, Grenada, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Tuvalu, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Belize,...

 on 16 April 1953 and commissioned on 11 January 1954.

The ship was designed with three masts, a 133 feet (40.5 m) foremast, a 139 feet (42.4 m) mainmast, and a 118 feet (36 m) mizzenmast.