Royal Navy: HMS Queen Elizabeth to exchange gun salutes near Isle of Wight before Portsmouth return

HMS Queen Elizabeth has been out on the water for a week after leaving Rosyth in Fife, Scotland, last Monday. The 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier is on her way back to Portsmouth and is due to sail towards the Victory Jetty tomorrow evening, but will stop off near Cowes before that.

She will carry out a sail past and exchange gun salutes with the Royal Yacht Squadron. The Cowes week regatta will be in full swing, with HMS Tyne being the event’s guard ship. Ever since the 65,000 tonne aircraft carrier has been back at sea, her crew have been put through their paces and been carrying out tough exercise drills. Royal Air Force P8 Maritime Patrol Aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth joined them for the operations.

Commanding Officer Captain Will King has hinted that work has only just begun, with operations taking place later this year. He said: “Whilst no warship wants to find itself spending unscheduled time out of the water, I am enormously proud of the work that has gone on in Rosyth. Everybody on board is looking forward to getting back to sea, where we belong, and picking up a busy programme in the autumn.”

Tests of the £3.2bn warship’s systems have been carried out alongside a variety of training regimes. This included boat drills, damage control exercises and intelligence briefings. Maintenance was completed on the upper deck while HMS Queen Elizabeth was sailing in the North Sea. It has taken several months for the aircraft carrier to be back at sea after a propeller shaft misalignment fault blocked her from leading a UK Carrier Strike Group during Exercise Steadfast Defender.

Commander Alex Davies, head of the marine engineering department, said: “An enormous amount of work has taken place over the last few months to get us to this point. This is at the larger end of the scale for Royal Navy Marine Engineering, and it has taken a really effective team effort from our own engineers, Defence Equipment and Support, and our Industry Partners to return us to sea.”

Heads of the Swedish and Chilean navies, as well as Royal Navy and British Army officers, were hosted aboard ship while she was in Rosyth. Various civic dignitaries, officials and organisations affiliated to Edinburgh joined them.

A team from the Fleet Operational Standards and Training (FOST) organisation provided a week of firefighting and damage control training for the entire ship. A series of small scale of maintenance and husbandry projects were also completed, including a a full new coat of paint for the hull and upper deck.