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. The royal yacht is most often crewed by personnel from the navy and used by the monarch and their family on both private and official travels.
Some royal yachts have been small vessels only used for short trips on rivers or in calm waters, but others have been large seaworthy ships.
Depending on how the term is defined royal yachts date back to the days of antiquity with royal barges on the Nile in ancient Egypt.
Later the Vikings produced royal vessels. They followed the pattern of longships although highly decorated and fitted with purple sails (purple sails remained standard for royal vessels the next 400 years).
In England, Henry V sold off the royal yachts to clear the Crown's debts. The next royal vessels in England were built in the Tudor period with Henry VIII using a vessel in 1520 that was depicted as having cloth of gold sails. James I had Disdain, a ship in miniature (she was later recorded as being able to carry about 30 tons), built for his son Prince Henry. Disdain was significant in that she allowed for pleasure cruising and as a result can be seen as an early move away from royal ships as warships.
The first ships to unquestionably qualify as royal yachts were those owned by Charles II of England Scotland and Ireland. The first was gift from the Dutch but later yachts were commissioned and built in England. This established a tradition of royal yachts in Britain that was later copied by other royal families of Europe. Through the 19th century royal yachts got larger as they became a symbol of national wealth. World War I brought this trend to an end and the royal families that survived found it harder to justify the cost with the result that there are only three royal yachts left in use in Europe. For the most part royal yachts have been superseded by the use of warships in this role, as royal yachts are often seen as a hard-to-justify expenditure. In addition most monarchies with a railway system employ a special set of ceremonial royal carriages. Most monarchies are also granted access to government owned aircraft for transportation.
The Danish royal family have had several royal yachts. Two of them have been named Dannebrog.
During the existence of the German Empire, the Kaiser used these imperial yachts:
The Kriegsmarine fleet tender Grille was built as a state yacht for Adolf Hitler.
King Hussein of Jordan was aboard his royal yacht (name not reported) in the Gulf of Aqaba when on 7 June 1981 it was overflown by eight low-flying Israeli F-16s en route to attack the Osirak reactor in Iraq during Operation Opera. One of the pilots described it as 'stunning white... incredible'.
King Haakon VII received the royal yacht Norge as a gift from the people of Norway in 1947. The royal yacht is owned by the king but maintained and crewed by the Royal Norwegian Navy. Before this other naval ships had served as royal sea transport and the king used some smaller boats for short trips mostly on official occasions.
The Oman Royal Yacht Squadron operates the following major vessels from Muscat and Muttrah in Oman:
The Imperial Ottoman Government used many yachts for its head of state. These include:
The Republic of Turkey also has presidential yachts
The Portuguese King Charles I used four successive royal yachts, all named Amélia, after his wife, Queen Amélie of Orleans. These yachts were, mainly, used by Charles I for his oceanographic missions. It was in the Amélia IV that King Manuel II and the Portuguese royal family left the country for the exile, after the republican revolution of 5 October 1910. In the republican regime the Amélia IV was renamed NRP 5 de Outubro and operated by the Portuguese Navy.
Imperial yachts employed by the Tsar of Russia:
Dubai is the personal yacht of Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, ruler of Dubai and Prime Minister of the United Arab Emirates. Completed in 2006, she is the third largest yacht currently in service at 524 feet (160 m) long. She came to world media attention when she sailed out to welcome the retired ocean liner, Queen Elizabeth 2 to Dubai in November 2008.
Another personal yacht of the Sheikh is the 40-metre (130 ft) Alloya, built by Sanlorenzo in 2013.
The United Kingdom has had 83 royal yachts since the restoration of Charles II of England in 1660. Charles II himself had 25 royal yachts, while five were simultaneously in service in 1831. Since the decommissioning of Britannia in 1997 the British monarchy no longer has a royal yacht.
The Principality of Monaco owned the princely yacht Deo Juvante II between 1956–1958. This Camper and Nicholsons yacht was a wedding gift from Aristotle Onassis to Prince Rainer and Grace Kelly and was used on their honeymoon. The yacht, now called M/Y Grace, is now owned and operated by Quasar Expeditions.
Yugoslavia had some royal yachts before World War II (most notably, one was a sister ship of Ilinden which sank in Lake Ohrid in 2009).
Zanzibar had only one naval ship in 1896, the royal yacht HHS Glasgow. It was sunk by the British during the shortest war in history, the Anglo-Zanzibar War.
Other nations that employ some form of yacht presently or in the past include China and Sarawak.