Prince Harry's Caribbean ship breaks down



Prince Harry 's plans for his Caribbean tour went awry today after the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship that is his base for the trip broke down and could not leave port.

The RFA Wave Knight was scheduled to embark from St Vincent on Saturday night.

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But after developing what was described as a "technical fault" it remained moored in port while engineers worked round the clock to try to fix it.

By midday local time on Sunday the ship was still not fixed, forcing the royal party into a change of plan.

Instead of setting sail for Grenada, the Prince's next stop, and pausing halfway to have a picnic lunch on a desert island, as had been planned, the Prince was taken to a small island off the coast of St Vincent in Wave Knight's tender to have lunch.



Above: Prince Harry receives a painting of himself from local artist Calvert Jones at a reception on St Vincent and the Grenadines

If the problem persists, Prince Harry will have to change plans and fly to Grenada instead.This flight would almost certainly be on a chartered aircraft.

The Prince would also book into hotels rather than sleeping on the ship.

The Prince and his entourage had been due to spend Sunday and Monday night aboard the tanker before it returned to duties in the Caribbean.

A spokesman for Kensington Palace said: "Today, day eight of the tour, was a designated travel day. The journey from St Vincent and the Grenadines to Grenada was due to take six hours and the tour party planned to stop along the way for lunch.



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