The Royal Dragon

Prince Philip’s interest in small boat sailing was picked up by a member of the Cowes-based Island Sailing Club (ISC). He approached the Club’s Commodore with the proposal that the ISC should present a 29ft International Dragon class yacht as a wedding present to Princess Elizabeth and The Duke of Edinburgh. Agreeing to this idea, the Commodore, Jimmy Damant, wrote to the Royal couple on 2 April 1948, formally making the offer, which was quickly accepted. Jimmy Damant wanted to ensure that the Dragon would be a present from the entire membership of the ISC rather than a wealthy minority, so he asked the members to contribute £1 each, which was equivalent to their annual subscription. Despite limiting the size of donations to £5 per member, the target was met within a week!

Building a new wooden boat at this time had become a challenging task that required a little ingenuity and a persuasive manner. The Admiralty had imposed severe restrictions on the use of timber for the construction of wooden pleasure craft because it was in such short supply. These constraints were only relaxed for a very small number of special cases, so it came as a relief when the ISC discovered that Camper & Nicholson was about to start work on a new Dragon. She had been commissioned to participate in the Olympic trials due to be held that July, but the owner was no longer able to race her, so he agreed to sell her to the ISC and the keel was laid on 12 May 1948.

Perhaps the biggest initial problem for the Royal couple was to strike a balance between the yachting world’s perceptions of Royal yachting, created by King George V’s Britannia, and the more modest style of the Dragon class. The Royal couple’s choice of name for their Dragon provided an early example of this dilemma. In view of her smaller size, Prince Philip wanted a name that clearly differentiated her from her famous predecessor. Through a careful association of Dragon - Dragonfly - Blue (her colour) - Bluefly, His Royal Highness arrived at the name Bluebottle. This choice attracted a certain amount of criticism along the lines that it was flippant and an insult to the donors. Fortunately, Bluebottle’s colour scheme proved to be less controversial. Initially, it was decided to adopt the “Royal Blue” previously used for Britannia, but Charles Nicholson thought that the blue was too dark for a small hull and instead recommended a slightly lighter shade of blue. The Royal couple agreed to this suggestion, and her final colour scheme comprised red below the waterline, a dark blue hull and a red cove line. These colours were complemented by the suit of Royal Blue sails and the Daffodil Yellow spinnaker (the second suit was plain white). Interestingly, the “Bluebottle blue” was used for the hull of HM Yacht Britannia while Bluebottle’s red cove line was subsequently changed to match Britannia’s gold line.

It was clear that the Royal couple’s various commitments would only allow them to attend a few regattas each season. Prince Philip was still a serving Naval Officer, and in fact, he was posted to Malta in 1949. However, the presence of the Royal Dragon at a regatta without her owners could still help to generate interest in individual events and the sport of yachting as a whole. Therefore, the Admiralty agreed to appoint a Naval Officer to act as the Sailing Master and race Bluebottle on the Royal couple’s behalf. Lieutenant Commander Michael Crichton RN was appointed as the first Sailing Master in May 1948. In the early years, the role of Sailing Master was a part-time task, but as Bluebottle’s programme became more adventurous, the job changed into a full-time appointment during the summer months. The seven Sailing Masters were supported by Clive Smith, who joined Bluebottle in 1948 as the paid hand. In addition to sailing onboard, whenever the local class rules permitted the presence of a professional sailor, Clive Smith was responsible for her routine maintenance.

When Bluebottle was completed at the end of June 1948, she followed the general appearance of the pre-war Dragons, complete with a small two-berth cabin and a short cockpit. However, there were a few finishing touches to recognise her Royal status. These included The Duke of Edinburgh badge fitted either side of the bow, and the tiller made in Chatham Dockyard by James Rutt, who carved Their Royal Highnesses’ cypher into each side and a small heraldic Edinburgh Castle on the end. Camper & Nicholsons also built a 10ft rowing dinghy, to accompany Bluebottle, which was painted in the same colour scheme. It was decided, in view of Their Royal Highnesses’ busy programmes, to dispense with a formal handing-over ceremony and so Bluebottle was taken from Gosport on 2 July 1948 by Lieutenant Commander Crichton to the Hamble for eight days of sail stretching. Bluebottle’s racing career got off to a creditable start on 10 July 1948 when she finished third out of ten starters at the hands of Lieutenant Commander Crichton. Despite the absence of her Royal owners, Bluebottle flew the Royal couple’s racing flag which, for the first season, consisted of Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip’s cypher in gold on a dark blue background. Prince Philip decided to replace this design during the winter of 1948 / 49 because he thought the detail was too complicated to see at a distance. Therefore, he opted for a dark green flag with a black heraldic Edinburgh Castle within a white circle.

During her 14 seasons of competition, Bluebottle became perhaps the most travelled British-built Dragon with visits to Canada, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Monaco, Italy, Portugal, and France. The highlight of her career came in 1956 when she won the Bronze Medal at the Melbourne Olympic Games at the hands of her Sailing Master Lieutenant Commander Graham Mann. Bluebottle was also raced extensively in home waters around the UK. It was these home regattas that provided Prince Philip with a few opportunities to race Bluebottle himself in between his Naval, and later Royal, commitments. The Comptroller and Treasurer to the Household of Princess Elizabeth, Lieutenant General Sir Frederick ‘Boy’ Browning, shared Prince Philip’s love of sailing. Boy owned the 61ft converted MFV Fanny Rosa and invited the Duke to stay onboard during his first visit to Cowes Week in 1948. One day, the Cowes-based boatbuilder and designer Uffa Fox rowed across to Fanny Rosa to offer his help and advice to His Royal Highness. This marked the beginning of a long friendship, and Uffa would often join Prince Philip when he sailed Bluebottle. Describing Uffa Fox, Prince Philip recalled, “Uffa was a genius with a sailing boa,t and his advice on tactics and knowledge of the tidal conditions in the Solent was invaluable. He was usually very keen to take as much advantage as possible by going in-shore to avoid an adverse tide. This put us on the rocks at Egypt Point more than once!”

Not surprisingly, Prince Philip’s presence at an event generated a great deal of interest. To avoid press boats becoming a nuisance to both Prince Philip and the other competitors, His Royal Highness would usually pose for photos with Bluebottle before the start of a race. In return the photographers were expected to keep out of everyone’s way the moment the starting gun had been fired. By and large, the arrangement worked although there were a few occasions when a photographer got in the way while trying to get more action shots. Although Queen Elizabeth II never raced Bluebottle, she did sail on board once in August 1949. The Royal couple had been due to attend Cowes Week, but the weather was so bad on the day of their arrival in Hampshire that Bluebottle was sent across the Solent to meet them in the Beaulieu River. In view of the weather, they stayed onboard Fanny Rosa for the day and sailed Bluebottle in the Beaulieu River under trysail only.

Like any racing yacht, old age eventually caught up with Bluebottle. By 1961, she was no longer as competitive as the latest Dragons to be built, so Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip decided the time had come to retire Bluebottle rather than watch her slip gracefully down the result sheets. Bluebottle’s achievements in her final series of races on the Medway in September and October 1961 provided the perfect conclusion to her racing career with two first prizes. Although Bluebottle had lost her competitive edge she still had plenty of life left in her. The Royal couple thought that Bluebottle could be a useful addition to the fleet of 120 small boats used by Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) at Dartmouth to train the Navy’s young officers. BRNC expressed strong interest in the offer, not least because the College already operated the 26ft Salcombe A Class keel boat Wiluna, which had been donated to BRNC in May 1956, and it was thought that Bluebottle would complement her within their fleet. In February 1962, she was sent to Dartmouth on a long-term loan with the restriction that she would never race again. It was also understood that when she became too expensive to maintain, she would be scuttled. In practice many of the officers under training were deterred from sailing Bluebottle for fear of blighting their Naval careers before they had begun by damaging the Royal Dragon! Thus, Bluebottle was mainly used by members of BRNC’s staff for the next three decades.

By the late 1990s, the use of Bluebottle was declining while her maintenance costs continued to rise,e so the Commodore of BRNC initiated a review of Bluebottle’s future in 1998. This review concluded that the time had come for Bluebottle to be placed with a suitable maritime museum for long-term preservation. Prince Philip was a Trustee of the National Maritime Museum (NMM) at Greenwich, and it was approached to see if the museum would take her on. The NMM could only display Bluebottle out of the water and suggested that it would be better for the Royal Dragon’s long-term future if she were put on show at the National Maritime Museum Cornwall (NMMC) on one of their exhibition berths. However, the museum was not due to open until 2002, and BRNC was keen to part with Bluebottle to avoid incurring further maintenance costs. Therefore, it was decided to move Bluebottle to Falmouth and place her in storage until the museum could take her. This provided an ideal opportunity for Bluebottle to make a coastal voyage under sail. Appropriately enough, as another term of Naval Officers passed out of BRNC, on 28 July 1999, Bluebottle slipped out of Dartmouth for her new home with Sir Robin Knox-Johnston at the helm. He was joined for the voyage by the museum’s future Director, Peter Cowling and the Chairman of the Trustees, Terry Vernon.

Following her arrival in Falmouth, Bluebottle was stored in the Pendennis shipyard until May 2001, when she was moved to the Fowey yard of Maurice Hunkin. In a strange twist of fate, it was fifty years since Maurice’s father, Charlie Hunkin, had undertaken one of Bluebottle’s previous refits during the winter of 1951 / 52. As part of this earlier work, Charlie Hunkin replaced her canvas decks and fitted a new coach roof to a design by Uffa Fox. Half a century later, Bluebottle was still essentially in good condition, but she needed a package of work including the replacement of seven steamed ribs, three floors and part of the stem before she could be exhibited to the public. The refit was completed at the end of April 2002, just one week before The Queen and Prince Philip’s visit to NMMC at the start of The Queen’s Golden Jubilee Tour of the UK. It was the first time that Prince Philip had seen Bluebottle for a few years,s and he was pleased to see her looking in very good condition.

Bluebottle spent the next few years displayed afloat on one of NMMC’s pontoon berths and was regularly sailed around Falmouth Bay during the summer months by the museum’s volunteers. However, the financial burden of maintaining Bluebottle as a working exhibit ultimately proved too much for the NMMC. She was eventually laid up while the museum considered the options for the Royal Dragon’s future and sought The Duke of Edinburgh’s views. The late local Dragon sailor Christopher Hunt, known to one and all as Buddha, approached Prince Philip, who confirmed that he did not want Bluebottle to sail again. Plans were subsequently drawn up to raise £10,000 to restore the Royal Dragon for static display within the museum. To help publicise the appeal, Bluebottle was towed to Cowes on a road trailer to be displayed ashore during the annual regatta in 2011. As the fundraising efforts continued, she was placed outside the NMMC in the summer of 2012, sporting a couple of banners supporting Team GBR in time for the opening of the London Olympic Games. Despite their best efforts, the volunteers were unable to secure the required funding, and Bluebottle was stored out of sight to await her fate.