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HNoMY Norge

HNoMY Norge during a visit to Stockholm in September 2005
History
United Kingdom
Name: MY Philante
Owner: T O M Sopwith
Ordered: 1936
Builder: Camper and Nicholsons, Gosport
Launched: 11 February 1937
Fate: sold to the Admiralty, September 1939
United Kingdom
Name: HMS Philante
Acquired: 21 September 1939
Honours and
awards:
Battle of the Atlantic
Fate: sold 1946
Norway
Name: Norge
Namesake: Norway
Cost: 1,500,000 NOK (1947)
Acquired: July 1947
Commissioned: 17 May 1948
Status: in active service
General characteristics
Tonnage: 1,628 t
Length: 80.6 m (264 ft 5 in)
Beam: 11.6 m (38 ft 1 in)
Draught: 4.7 m (15 ft 5 in)
Propulsion:
  • 2 × Bergen Diesel 1,760 hp (1,312 kW) (installed 1982)
  • 2 shafts
Speed: 17 knots (31 km/h; 20 mph)
Range: 6,500 nmi (12,000 km)
Complement: 54 (18 officers, 36 privates) during the season; 20 during winter
Armament: Small arms

HNoMY Norge (in Norwegian, KS or K/S Norge) is the Royal Yacht of the King of Norway. One of only three remaining Royal Yachts in Europe, the ship's name Norge is Norwegian Bokmål for Norway. The Royal Yacht Norge was the Norwegian people's gift to King Haakon VII in 1947. The yacht is owned by the King but maintained and manned by the Royal Norwegian Navy. Originally built in 1937 in the United Kingdom for a wealthy businessman, she served in the Royal Navy as an armed yacht during the Second World War.

The vessel was built in 1937 by Camper and Nicholsons in Gosport, Hampshire as a luxury yacht for Thomas Sopwith, a wealthy British aviation engineer and industrialist, who was then the chairman of the Hawker Siddeley Aircraft Company. One of the world's largest privately owned motor yachts of its time, it was intended for leisure cruising and for Sopwith to use as a base at ocean racing events, in which he was a keen patron and participant. The yacht's name was MY Philante, a portmanteau of the names of the owner's wife and son; Phil, short for "Phyllis", an, short for "and", t and e for "Thomas Edward". She crossed the Atlantic in the same year for Sopwith's unsuccessful attempt to win the Americas Cup as helmsman of his new J-class yacht, Endeavour II. During the passage home, Philante's skipper died and was buried at sea. In 1939, Philante was used as a base for the organising committee of the Teignmouth Regatta in which Sopwith was racing his yacht Tomahawk. The regatta ended on 1 September, the day that Nazi Germany invaded Poland, precipitating the United Kingdom's entry into the Second World War two days later. The Admiralty approached Sopwith with a view to taking over the Philante as an armed yacht; Sopwith agreed to sell the vessel to the Royal Navy, although some sources state that she was requisitioned, or donated as a gift to the nation.


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