Ark Royal

[#1]

Ark Royal left Portsmouth yesterday to be scrapped.
Ark Royal
Ark Royal2

[#2]

A sad day. I remember just before 2000 watching a program on TV boasting about the Invincible, Illustrious and Ark Royal all tooled up with harriers. It was an incredible sight and the ships were quite clearly still serviceable with a lot of life left in them.
Now less than 1.5 decades later all 3 are gone apparently no longer fit for service and we're spending £billions on another one?
What I find frustrating the most is that the ships are scrapped. They won the falklands war and are a historic icon to this country. At least one should have been saved for the nation - even if it was turned into a floating hotel, offices, etc. One of the mighty trio should have been saved! Afterall we are talking about helicopter carriers that took a bunch of harrier pilots into a warzone and won - with the world watching.
To think.. I'm not really even into boats 

[#3]

Enormous cost to keep a ship of that size "mothballed"... and even if used as hotel or office ... would be extremely expensive to maintain.... specialist job to do that sort of thing.... 30 years for a warship is a long time... may look good, but could well be rusting in some serious places you cannot see.  and modern equipment will not fit or be suitable for fitting to keep them in operational order without major surgery and inevitable costs involved.... upgrading of living accomodation to keep up with modern standards would be prohibitve, and then you need all the electrics and other "house" utilities to be upgraded too.... ships galley... sick bay, radio, radar, propulsion unit...... the list goes on and on.....

[#4]

Well we have other preserved ships, I don't see why it would be so hard to put one of the carriers into preservation!

[#5]

Did you get down and take some photos Shutter?

[#6]

No... I did not... seeing ships being towed out of harbour on their final journey would upset me too much !..

[#7]

Understood.