Out with the old…

There’s been a lot of heavy metal moving around the Forth recently. HMS Illustrious was alongside the UK’s newest aircraft carrier in Rosyth for the naming ceremony, before being moved up river [see above and below].

‘Lusty’ left the Forth at the weekend heading down to Portsmouth where she’s to be decommissioned.

HMS Queen Elizabeth is one of two replacements for the Invincible-class ships. While Illustrious dwarfed our Macwester, HMS Queen Elizabeth is three times the size of Illustrious.

At the moment HMS Queen Elizabeth dominates the skyline in the Forth, even substantially blocking out the view to the bridges from Capernaum Pier.

We sailed past her this morning [see shot above]. Not at all convinced I’d want to be in the way of 65,000 tonnes travelling at 25 knots. We were thankful that she was caged inside the dockyard at Rosyth.

The shot above shows HMS Queen Elizabeth parked alongside a handful of nuclear subs [see the black line about half way along her port side].

Having made it safely past, we speculated what HMS Queen Elizabeth’s nickname might be …and from a distance we mischievously thought that she looked a little bit like a Disney pooch. Pluto was our first guess, but then we noticed the snaggle teeth on the bow and we realised that she looked more like Goofy or possibly Preston from Wallace & Gromit from that angle. Given what we had felt just a few moments earlier, we reasoned that this must be a strategic attempt to lull the enemy into a false sense of security.

Reckon I’d still be tempted to run away …fast!