HMS Prince of Wales: 19 quirky facts you might not know about the Royal Navy aircraft carrier

Here are some facts about the 65,000 tonne warship and its sister ship, HMS Queen Elizabeth:

- The design of the Queen Elizabeth class of carriers began in 1999 and the ships are expected to have a 50-year service life.

- The carriers can travel in excess of 25 knots per hour, have a range of 10,000 nautical miles and they are designed for deployments typically lasting nine months.

- Each ship can keep 45 days' worth of food in their stores and a typical deployment would sail with 66,000 sausages, 28,800 rashers of bacon, 64,800 eggs and 12,000 tins of beans.

- The ships have 67 catering staff and have their own bakery which can produce 1,000 loaves of bread per day.

- Each flight deck is 70 metres wide and 280 metres long, which is enough space for four jumbo jets.

- The ships are 56m from keel to masthead which is six metres taller than Nelson's Column, and each ship has 17 decks and 15 lifts.

- Each ship can operate on a crew of 679, which, despite the ships' size, is fewer crew members than for the Invincible class aircraft carriers that they replace.

- Each ship can accommodate up to 1,600 personnel, which would include a full air crew, but also provides space for embarked personnel such as Royal Marines.

- HMS Queen Elizabeth's home berth, Sheer Jetty at Portsmouth Naval Base, has been in use since the 1600s and sits opposite HMS Victory, the world's oldest commissioned warship.

- The ships will fly the F35-B fighter jets - which can fly at 1.6 mach - as well as any type of helicopter used by the UK armed forces.

- Each ship will be able to fly 72 fast jet sorties per day, which can be increased further for limited periods.

- It takes 60 seconds to lift four aircraft from the hangar to the flight deck on each of the two lifts and the ski-jumps that are used for take-off are 6m high.

- Each ship will sail with an escort vessel, such as a Type 45 destroyer, which takes the lead in engaging threats.

- Each ship generates 80MW of power in their propellers, which is equal to 50 high speed trains.

- The fog horn is 162 decibels and can be heard from more than two miles away.

- The ships have their own police office and cells as well as their own dentist, pharmacy, surgery and operating theatre, fitness suites and cinemas.

- Each ship can convert sea water into more than 500 tonnes of drinking water each day, which is for both the crew and providing humanitarian relief.

- Each ship is made up of 17 million parts and there are more than 250,000km of electrical cable and 8,000km of fibre optic cable inside each of the ships.

- There are also 364,000 metres of pipes inside each of the ships, which could stretch from Rosyth to Wales.