Brits seek rousing name for polar research vessel The Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) is inviting Joe Public to suggest names for its forthcoming polar research ship, due to hit the world's oceans in 2019. The £200m, 15,000 tonne vessel - to be built at Merseyside shipbuilding yard Cammell Laird - is hailed as Blighty's "largest and most advanced research ship yet …
Now THIS is state of the art. What I see on the pic is a retirement sailboat. So something leisurely like "Easy does it" will be most appropriate.
Yeah, I know - having something in that class means actually being serious about the Arctic and Antarctic. It actually does not cost that much either - the price is less than a Trident submarine.
Or "My First Icebreaker"
Second actually, RRS James Clark Ross (current Antarctic/Arctic survey ship) has theoretical 1m ice breaking capacity. This one is in the same class.
That kind of "capability" is a joke - as proved by the Akademik Shokalsky incident. The end result is that a proper icebreaker has to go in and save their sorry a**e. And even those if they are not nuclear if the ice really hits the fan, can only sit, watch observe and serve as a helicopter platform. More than 3 meters and that's it. Compared to that a proper nuclear monster can break through 10m ice. It takes it quite a bit of time, but it can. 1m ice - it literally just cruises through. Just search on gootube. It is a sight which nothing can compare with. The amount of stupid sheer power at use is just... russian...
RRS "Easy Does it" or RRS "Invest in anything but Science" are most appropriate.
I sailed on the James Clark Ross about ten years ago. British polar research vessels are not "icebreakers" like the Russian ones, but "ice-strengthened". The difference is in the shape of the hull. An icebreaker has a rounded bow profile which forces the ice below the water as the ship progresses (see the picture of the Botnica here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icebreaker#Ice_resistance_and_hull_form) - but this makes the ship less stable and less efficient when operating in the open water. The British ships both have a more conventional bow shape and a flattish bottom, and break ice by riding up onto it and breaking it with their sheer weight. This is slower and more energy intensive when breaking ice, but provides much better performance in open water. They spend a very small fraction of their duties actually breaking ice. A typical tasking for JCR involves sailing from the UK in August, bringing cargo and supplies down to the Antarctic stations and doing some scientific work on the way. In November and December they start doing deliveries to the Antarctic stations with scientific operations in between. The bulk of the scientific mission is done in mid-season when the ice is starting to retreat. From February to April they will do "last call" at the various Antarctic stations before returning to the UK. Generally JCR then undertakes Arctic work during the northern summer before the cycle repeats. The choice of an ice-strengthened hull profile means better performance in the open sea and a much lower fuel bill for the UK taxpayer, at the expense of performance in heavy ice.
With regard to the Shokalsky incident - the British ships don't operate in the southern Ross Sea because that area is heavily covered by the USA, Australia and New Zealand. JCR is designed for operation in the Weddell Sea and the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, where the ice thickness is generally less of an issue.
Oh, there's one other issue with Antarctica: the Antarctic Treaty and its associated protocols declare it to be a nuclear-free zone, so nuclear-powered icebreakers are not an option. The USA actually had a nuclear power reactor on one of their bases in the 50s, and were made to take it away once the Treaty was signed!
Excellent write-up sir, and now I shall nitpick you:
The USA actually had a nuclear power reactor on one of their bases in the 50s, and were made to take it away once the Treaty was signed!
The Antarctic Treaty (signed 1959) banned nuclear testing and nuclear waste, but not reactors. The US was a signatory when it operated McMurdo base's nuclear plant from 1964 to 1972, and was shutdown because of 1) 438 malfunctions in that period, and 2) low cost-effectiveness.
The role the treaty played was that the US was obligated to remove 9000 cubic meters (~20,000 tons) of contaminated soil, plus the reactor, spent fuel, and sundry other radioactive crap, most of which ended up at Savannah River to leak into surrounding communities.
Now that is an Arktika-class nuclear beast but you need a lot of laser power to defeat the specific heat of ice / water at 4200j/k/degs C. Greenland laser packing sharks are pretty scarce...
The brute force method is better there's a video out on Younyancat blowing diesels off the planet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VVtDX46cTJQ this is before Murmansk Shipping CO Atomic became Rosatom.
Vessel does her bit for climate science too a shufty at sailwx will find where she is...
I proposed Sir Edmund Hillary but Ranulph Fiennes must be a close second.
LC
The brute force method
That video shows a common problem with foreigners not quite getting it when dealing with Russians. The poor pack ice clearly failed to recognize the "Que".
When you hear _THAT_ melody anywhere around Russians the best thing is to make sure you are not on their ramming vector. If you value your life - be somewhere else. There is 104 years of genetic imprint in that tune including 2 world wars, a civil war and a countless number of smaller ones. If the Russians, or the Polish for that matter (the tune with a different text used to be Armia Krajova WW2 battle song), have put Прощание Славянки on the tannoy... Just run. If you can. Quite clearly the ice did not "get the message".
Clever bit of design :- put the reactors up front and if the ice get's a tad thick tell the engineer to set the reactors to 110% and just wait a while till the hull glows reddish..
I think ABB Azipods are still probably more useful approach.
I would put forward the name 'John Franklin'. He was a British explorer (and a naval officer who had fought at Trafalgar) who led a very well-prepared expedition to chart the Northwest Passage, but it was one which came to a tragic end due to an unfortunate series of circumstances. The disappearance of the expedition stayed in the minds of the British public for several decades afterwards, and the mystery was only solved a few years ago. More here.
The event also forms the basis for a superb horror novel by Dan Simmons, The Terror (no link, 'cos a synopsis would spoil the story).
Tragic, but expected (yes, I know, such is the power of hindsight). Prior to Amundsen (first ship properly designed to "pop-up" instead of being broken by ice) and Kolchak (first research ice-breaker) practically all expeditions by all countries went into the arctic on a wing and a prayer.
So I would not actually put the "great preparation" tag on any of them. Including Franklin's one.
So if we are going to name it after a person Colin Archer would be the most appropriate - he is the Scot who build the first proper Arctic ship. The Fram. Now, I will not comment on why he ended up in Norway to actually build something that is new and advanced. That is a different story.
@ Voland's right hand
Colin Archer was born In Norway, Larvik 1832, his parents immigrated to Norway 1825. My grandmother had one built and brought from Norway. She often talked about that yacht. They are still built and popular if a bit old fashion as they are narrow, deep and rather heavy.
"In 1906, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen first successfully completed a passage from Greenland to Alaska in the sloop Gjøa.
Gjøa was the first vessel to transit the Northwest Passage. With a crew of six, Roald Amundsen traversed the passage in a three-year journey, finishing in 1906.
Gjøa was built by Knut Johannesson Skaale in Rosendal, Norway in 1872, the same year Amundsen was born".
(to quote the Wiki). Is this the different story.
(to quote the Wiki). Is this the different story.
It is - Gjøa was not specifically designed for ice from the ground up as a polar adventure/research vessel.
That honor is carried by Fram (Amundsen + Archer) and Taimyr + Vaygach (Kolchak). They designed and operated the first proper arctic science expeditions using equipment which was built specifically for that purpose and designed for the environment.
What is the difference between Amundsen and a baker - Amundsen took himself forward with "Forward" while the baker took himself forward with baking.
I taught myself Svenska 40 years ago by reading the Asterix the Gaul books. The pun in "bak" for baking/behind had to be confirmed by blowing the dust off my Esselette Studium two volume large dictionary. That was bought at the same time as my first Swedish Asterix book in Stockholm. Although I now realise I missed the dropdown box in Google with alternative meanings.
I decided to see what Google made of the whole thing - expecting something a bit closer than it actually achieved. It was a surprise to me as the Swedish looked like straightforward grammar that could almost be translated with word substitution.
Google Translate:
"What is portrayed laden between Amundsen and a baker - Amundsen scampered down the front while the baker came down with the back."
"The event also forms the basis for a superb horror novel by Dan Simmons, The Terror (no link, 'cos a synopsis would spoil the story)."
If we're going down the horror route, some Thing tells me that the 'R.J. MacReady' would be most appropriate, especially when in the Antarctic...
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RRS Thetis or perhaps RRS Thunderbolt
Those who know the history of the Royal Navy may recognize that particular pair of names and might take the hint that perhaps it might not be a good idea to join that ship's crew. Hint: one particular RN ship had both names and set a record which will never be broken, and not in a good way.
...I first heard of it in a song by Jules Weston, (a one man rock band doing the rounds in North Yorkshire in the 80s - I lived in Ripon at the time and most heard him at the Navigation pub). The song starts (IIRC):
"I have passed many times a place north of Sicily
Where half a mile down on the seabed there lay
An old British submarine with all of her crew.
They are still down there waiting today..."
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I would choose, BOREAS(North Wind) for her.
We used to nickname Penguins,'waiters in tail-coats',seeing as there are none in the Arctic there's no point in naming her 'Penguin'.
POLARIS would also suffice.
When I was in the Arctic in the early 1960's, we used the Pole Star to navigate,unlike the Decca Navigation system,which had it's northernmost chain station in Norway,the magnetic interference would regularly throw out the system & it was never truly accurate.
Like a gyro system, with it's accuracy,the Pole Star is 'fixed' positionally speaking & was therefore a very useful tool for navigational back up.
A mighty vessel, built to face the elements at the ends of the Earth, bravely facing danger and Hardships for the advancement of the knowledge of Mankind, needs a properly fitting name.
Therefore I propose naming it after the primal Lord of the Elder Gods of the Greeks:
RSS Titan Uranus
?? What's all that tittering in the back for?
The British Polar Engine Company not only installed its first Diesel engine in a motor ship in 1907, it also powered the first motor ship to cross the Atlantic. The Polar name arose because they also powered Amundsen's Fram, so the connection with the poles is indeed strong.
The company since then has powered a lot of ships and submarines.
It would be nice to honour the unglamorous end of the expedition business, the bit that actually keeps things moving.
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I'd go for RRS William Speirs Bruce as the leader of the Scotia Expedition -- the only British Antarctic expedition to complete on time and on budget and achieve all its mission objectives with no loss of life. It's about time that expedition had more recognition.
Must be a good omen, Shirley?
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