In 1903 Formidable served as escort to King Edward VII aboard the royal yacht Victoria and Albert. She then underwent an approximately year-long refit at Malta in 1904-05 without returning to Britain. That overseas work shows that the Mediterranean station possessed dockyard capacity for sustained battleship maintenance, not merely fuel and routine replenishment. Formidable remained in the Mediterranean for roughly three more years before paying off at Chatham on 7 August 1908 for another refit.
Notable Point · 25:25-26:37
Royal-yacht escort and a year-long Malta refit
Formidable escorted King Edward VII’s yacht in 1903 and then demonstrated Malta’s ability to support a major battleship refit overseas.