When you’ve only got two big boats left, and the two of them are…well…busted, that’s gonna leave a mark.
In fact, when they break down on their way out of port, with the harbor closed to other traffic, and everyone lining the quays and roadways in anticipation of watching the awesome, majestic outbound passage, and then nothing.
It can be a little dispiriting.
Particularly when that boat is a replacement for the bigger boat that should have gone but couldn’t because it broke down. All to a multinational exercise your flagship is supposed to be leading.
A Royal Navy aircraft carrier has failed to set sail for a Nato exercise, a week after its sister ship pulled out because of a mechanical fault.
HMS Prince of Wales was due to replace HMS Queen Elizabeth in Exercise Steadfast Defender – the largest Nato exercise since the Cold War.
However, the £3bn warship has remained in Portsmouth…
