Amazing aerial view of the HMS Queen Elizabeth entering HMNB Portsmouth, UK, this morning on return from her latest period of Helicopter Sea Trials. June 23, 2018. The ship is the lead ship of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom and capable of carrying up to 60 aircraft. See NATIONAL story NNSHIP.
Amazing aerial view of the HMS Queen Elizabeth entering HMNB Portsmouth, UK, this morning on return from her latest period of Helicopter Sea Trials. June 23, 2018. The ship is the lead ship of the Queen Elizabeth class of aircraft carriers, the largest warships ever built for the Royal Navy of the United Kingdom and capable of carrying up to 60 aircraft. See NATIONAL story NNSHIP.
I believe Admiral Ian Easton, and Sea Lord, Caspar John, have been sending Lara and I messages.
“Raise the Royal Ghost Fleet!”
Just before Victoria Bond awoke from her naval dream, she heard a woman’s voice come to her like the wind from over the horizon.
“Save Albion from her enemies, Britannia!”
Jon Presco
Copyright 2018
Britain’s six Type 45 destroyers, described as the backbone of the Royal Navy, spent 80 per cent of last year in dock.
The ships, costing £1billion each, need a multi-million pound refit after repeatedly breaking down in the Persian Gulf. But the work is not due to start until 2020.
Two of the cutting-edge warships, HMS Dauntless and HMS Defender, did not go to sea at all during 2017 – which had been hailed by officials and ministers as ‘the year of the Navy’.
All six warships, which entered service from 2008, were made with an engine system which cuts out in warm seas, leaving sailors stranded for hours in total darkness.
Albion (Ancient Greek: Ἀλβιών) is the oldest known name of the island of Great Britain. Today, it is still sometimes used poetically to refer to the island. The name for Scotland in the Celtic languages is related to Albion: Alba in Scottish Gaelic, Albain (genitive Alban) in Irish, Nalbin in Manx and Alban in Welsh, Cornish, and Breton. These names were later Latinised as Albania and Anglicised as Albany, which were once alternative names for Scotland.
New Albion and Albionoria (“Albion of the North”) were briefly suggested as names of Canada during the period of the Canadian Confederation.[1][2] Arthur Phillip, first leader of the colonisation of Australia, originally named Sydney Cove “New Albion”, but later the colony acquired the name “Sydney“.[3][4][5]
It was during the reign of Elizabeth I that “Britannia” came to be viewed as a personification of Britain. In his 1576 General and rare memorials pertayning to the Perfect Arte of Navigation, John Dee used a frontispiece figure of Britannia kneeling by the shore beseeching Elizabeth I, to protect her empire by strengthening her navy.[10]
With the death of Elizabeth in 1603 came the succession of her Scottish cousin, James VI, King of Scots, to the English throne. He became James I of England, and so brought under his personal rule the Kingdoms of England (and the dominion of Wales), Ireland and Scotland. On 20 October 1604, James VI and I proclaimed himself as “King of Great Brittaine, France and Ireland”, a title that continued to be used by many of his successors.[11] When James came to the English throne, some elaborate pageants were staged. One pageant performed on the streets of London in 1605 was described in Anthony Munday‘s Triumphs of Reunited Britannia:
Britannia has been used in several different senses. The name is a Latinisation of the native Brittonic word for the island, Pretanī, which also produced the Greek form Prettanike or Brettaniai, which originally, in the fourth to the first centuries BC, designated a collection of islands with individual names, including Albion or Britain.
The Creative Royal Fleet Sets Sail
Here are the vessels that Sir Caspar John served upon. He was born into a artistic family. I would like see the College of Defence Studies founded by the Artist, Sir Winston Churchill, expanded to include Creative People in Britain and the U.S. As a rule artists, writers, and musicians do not take slaves, gas people, and loot other people’s art. Hitler did all three. He was a bad artist who cost the world many lives, and a trillion dollars to put him down. We took back the art he stole and put it in sacred public places. I support Theresa May’s strike against Assad, who gassed his own people.
Below are the warships that Sir Ian Easton served on.
Jon Presco
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspar_John
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Easton
China’s interpretation of the law of the sea within what it claims to be its own waters has long clashed with that of maritime powers and the majority of members of the international community. The United States regularly asserts maritime rights and freedoms under its “freedom of navigation” program, much to Beijing’s chagrin.
But as other maritime powers join the United States in taking steps to defend maritime rights—a British Royal Navy warship makes its way through the South China Sea this month—it is in China’s interests to learn from the Soviet example. As the Soviet navy transitioned from a “reactive coastal fleet” to a “proactive, expansionist, blue-water navy,” the Soviet attitude towards the law of the sea changed. It moved from one that sought to limit maritime freedoms to one that joined hands with naval powers, including its Cold War foe, the United States, to push for protection of such freedoms. A similar shift would help boost China’s international reputation, as well as protect and advance its interests across the globe.
Maritime powers join hands
British Defense Secretary Gavin Williamson confirmed last month that a Royal Navy warship would sail through the South China Sea in March on its way back from Australia to the United Kingdom to assert navigation rights in waters Beijing claims. The HMS Sutherland left Sydney for the South China Sea on March 15, undertaking training with the Australian navy in the meantime. It is not clear what rights, exactly, the United Kingdom will assert—Williamson declined to say whether it would exercise rights to innocent passage within 12-nautical miles of disputed land territories or wider freedoms outside of territorial seas.
What is clear, however, is that in taking steps to assert rights vested under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) in the South China Sea, the United Kingdom joins other maritime powers in guarding against their erosion. In June 2016, the French minister of defense underscored his country’s commitment to the principles of freedom of navigation and overflight and the navy’s intention to continue to pass through the waters of the region several times a year. In the first half of 2016, French navy vessels deployed to the region three times.
U.S. Freedom of Navigation program
The United States, for its part, regularly asserts maritime rights vested under UNCLOS under its “freedom of navigation” program. The program’s name is a bit of a misnomer since it protects more than the right to navigate from point A to point B. It defends a whole basket of rights and freedoms, including the right of warships to exercise innocent passage within territorial seas without prior notification or authorization, and the freedom to conduct military activities, including surveillance and reconnaissance, outside of territorial seas. The U.S. freedom of navigation program also pushes back against excessive maritime claims that limit rights and freedoms of warships and warplanes. In the past year, U.S. forces under the freedom of navigation program challenged China’s claims to a territorial sea from offshore features not entitled to one under UNCLOS.
Given its wide scope, it is more accurate to describe the program as a “freedoms of the seas” or “excessive maritime claims” program. More accurate terminology would make it more difficult for China to sidestep real disagreements over legitimate rights and freedoms under UNCLOS. Beijing suggests that the United States and others invent concerns over “freedom of navigation,” but its argument only has superficial validity if we take “freedom of navigation” in its narrowest sense. Still, the term “freedom of navigation” operations, or “FONOPS,” has stuck. From October 1, 2016, to September 30, 2017, the United States conducted freedom of navigation operations to challenge the excessive maritime claims of 22 countries around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Easton
Britain’s armed forces are massively bolstered by the massive threat posed to any enemies by the colossal aircraft carrier – which can carry up to 60 planes. It is staffed by around 650 crew and can travel more than half way around the world before needing to be refuelled. Her sister ship is named HMS Prince of Wales, and is the eighth to bear that name.
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British naval vessels in the South China Sea are avoiding the 12 mile zone around newly constructed military bases that China has constructed on disputed rocks.
Gavin Williamson, the British defence secretary, yesterday finished a three-day tour of southeast Asia in which he boasted of British “determination” to stand up against the nuclear threat of North Korea and the threat to navigation by China in the South China Sea.
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/royal-navy-doesnt-enough-ships-1675936
https://www.plymouthherald.co.uk/news/plymouth-news/royal-navy-doesnt-enough-ships-1675936
https://newatlas.com/type31-babcock-contender/54878/
https://sputniknews.com/military/201806161065470767-british-destroyers-engine-problems/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5850349/The-6-billion-Royal-Navy-fleet-hardly-went-sea.html
The competition to build the Royal Navy’s next low-cost frigate moved forward this week as Babcock Team 31 showed off its proposed design for the Type 31e warship. Called the Arrowhead 140, the contender for the £1.25 billion (US$1.63 billion) program is being developed by a Babcock-led consortium that includes Thales, OMT, BMT, Harland and Wolff, and Ferguson Marine, and is based on a design already in service with the Royal Danish Navy.
Rosamond Press 
Reblogged this on Rosamond Press and commented:
The Ghost Ships rove the sea.
HMS Montrose, left, shadowed two Russian corvettes in the North Sea, the Royal Navy said ( Royal Navy/MoD )
A British frigate shadowed two Russian warships as they manoeuvred in the North Sea and close to the English Channel, the Royal Navy has said.
HMS Montrose, a Type 23 frigate based in Plymouth, met the Russian corvettes Boikiy and Stoikiy after they left their base in the Baltic Sea
“After crossing the bulk of the North Sea, the corvettes dramatically cut their speed and slowly proceeded towards the north Norfolk coast” late last week, the navy said in a statement. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/royal-navy-shadow-russia-ships-north-sea-english-channel-hms-montrose-frigate-a8416846.html