The Queen celebrated an important anniversary this month, marking 67 years since the official launch of the Royal Yacht Britannia in 1953.
The ship played a large part in the family memories of the royals as it hosted many honeymoons, including that of Prince Charles and Princess Diana.
Royal commentator Rachel Bowie revealed to the Royally Obsessed podcast why the decommissioning of the yacht led to the Queen openly weeping.
She told listeners: “I love the use that they got out of it. It was decommissioned in 1997.
“The Queen actually wept openly about it when it was taken out of service.
“I think it was just such a part of so many family memories for the entire royal clan.
“One final fun fact: the clocks remain stopped at 3:01, the exact time when the Queen embarked for the very last time.”
Ms Bowie continued: “I think it’s just so cool that so many members of the Royal Family used it for their honeymoons.
“It was actually the first royal yacht to be designed for ocean travel, and that meant is it became the honeymoon destination of choice for several royals.
“Princess Margaret and Anthony Armstrong Jones used it as well as Princess Anne and Captain Mark Phillips.
“Apparently they endured crazy storms and spent the first week of their honeymoon completely seasick.”
The royal commentator added: “Famously Prince Charles and Princess Diana used it and so did Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson.
“It was actually pouring when the ship launched, but still more than 30,000 well-wishers showed up to see the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh in Clydeside.
“The ceremony actually occurred a month before the Queen’s official coronation as monarch on June 2.”
Ms Bowie also told listeners: “The ship itself was commissioned just two days after the death of Queen Elizabeth’s father and took over a year to be completed.
“Her appearance was also the first time the crowd got to hear the official name of the ship.
“That’s the only line you really could hear from the event because after that the crowd went so wild that you couldn’t even hear what she said after that.
“The ship was actually christened with wine, not champagne.
“This was post-WW2 and champagne was actually considered to be too extravagant for the launch of a ship at that time.”