Brian Lavery's Royal Yachts Under Sail introduces the vessel first known as Surprise and later renamed Royal Escape. Charles II acquired her after using the ship in his escape, but she subsequently spent much of her life moored or employed in humbler service instead of carrying the royal family. Surviving dimensions and Van de Velde images preserve evidence for the form and carrying capacity of a small mid-seventeenth-century trading ship as well as its later use as a royal yacht.
Chapter · 2:27:49-2:30:04
Royal Escape and the origins of English royal yachts
A reading from Royal Yachts Under Sail traces Royal Escape from Charles II's flight to a small royal vessel and rare record of a mid-seventeenth-century trader.