The largest and most powerful ship in the fleet review will be the French nuclear carrier Charles de Gaulle. It is 223ft longer than Britain’s largest ship, the carrier HMS Invincible.
British naval experts had hoped they would not be “outgunned” by the French because of the presence of the huge American carrier Carl Vinson. The US warship is, however, not attending the review on Tuesday because of “operational availability”.
American naval sources said the decision not to attend had been made because the White House did not want to upstage the French. “If we put a carrier there it would dwarf everything afloat and we’d get probably blamed again for being overbearing Yanks, particularly by the French,” said Norman Polmar, a US navy consultant.
The ship taking the Carl Vinson’s place, the USS Saipan, is a helicopter carrier that is 39ft shorter than the Charles de Gaulle. At 820ft it is still 184ft longer than Invincible.
The French navy booked its place in the royal fleet review last summer and is bringing six ships, the largest of the 35 foreign contingents.
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With 67 ships on parade, however, the Royal Navy and merchant navy are far from outnumbered. The navy ordered every ship it could spare to attend, including several due to be sold or scrapped in the next two or three years.
The nuclear-powered submarine HMS Sovereign, the only British craft named after a ship in Nelson’s Trafalgar fleet, was ordered back to port from its place in the review last Thursday because of “a number of routine defects”.
For full details of the Trafalgar celebrations, go to www.trafalgar200.com