The British armed forces have instituted arrangements in recent years whereby they lease hardware from the manufacturers rather than purchase it outright. This has been done with the army's Challenger 2 tanks, and the Royal Navy's OPV(H) patrol craft, for example.

I'm sure that there are all sorts of safeguards so that it is impossible for an overseas buyer to snap up a majority of shares in Firth Vickers and say to the army, "The next time you go to war in the Gulf, your armoured regiments go on foot."

Somebody might apply this arrangment so that some organisation such as Wetherspoon's could acquire the "Victory" and put it all over their publicity blurb, while restrictive covenants prevented them altering the structure of the ship, or changing its current use, or hanging unsightly advertising hoardings from the yards.