The new flagship of the British Royal Navy, the aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth, is scheduled to head to the Far East for military exercises and first operational deployment. Thousands bade farewell to the battleship Big Lizzie in Portsmouth.
The ship, worth 3 billion pounds, or more than 1,200 billion pounds, set sail from the port of Portsmouth in Hampshire, with a crew of about. It will be in the water for seven months. A small squadron escorted the ship into the harbor.
In addition to the 65-million-ton tanker, two destroyers and a frigate set sail on Saturday.
The HMS Queen Elizabeth, nicknamed “The Big Lizzie”, set sail from Portsmouth this afternoon for a voyage to China. We were lucky enough to see it up close as we passed it while at sea this afternoon Embed a Tweetpic.twitter.com/4L2OBZahSu
Candice Dolby (@ PrincessPickled) May 1, 2021
Before heading to the Pacific Ocean, it undergoes large-scale military training in Scotland with the participation of 1,500 ground soldiers. Australia, in addition to the United States of America, Denmark, France, Germany, Latvia, Norway and Poland, is joining the exercise, which focuses on crisis and conflict situations.
Queen Elizabeth and other boats will visit India, Japan, South Korea and Singapore. During deployment, the crew will cover 25,000 nautical miles.
In 2019, China warned the British that it viewed it as an anti-sailing move near it. So the Royal Navy units avoid the Taiwan Strait during the final stages of their journey in order not to provoke China, daily Mail.
