The decommissioned Royal Navy aircraft carrier (or 'through deck cruiser') HMS Ark Royal has been sold to Turkish breakers at Aliaga and today departed under tow from Portsmouth.
Unfortunately I had a stomach bug or other and decided against going over to Portsmouth, instead watching from Seaview.
Typically, the weather was murky with low cloud. The light levels were atrocious and I am fortunate the photos aren't as bad as I feared they would be (I am actually reasonably satisfied with them) but, despite the shit weather, there were quite a few people down at Seaview watching proceedings.
The ship was towed out of Portsmouth harbour by local tugs and the tow was attached to deep sea tug Christos XXIII out in the Solent.
Ark Royal is brought out into the Solent as Grande Ellade passes by
The tow line is attached, which took over an hour
And off they go
And that was that. With Invincible already gone, that only leaves Illustrious as the sole survivor of the three aircraft carriers and that's already been demoted to a helicopter carrier, now the Harrier aircraft are gone. Their replacements, the Queen Elizabeth-class - Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales - won't be ready for some years yet and, even then, there'll be no aircraft for them for years after that so, in the meantime, if we need an aircraft carrier we'll have to call on the French, as we're sharing their Charles de Gaulle - but can we trust the French if our own interests are threatened and we need an aircraft carrier?
