James Clark Ross News

It's the end of an era for the U.K.'s RRS James Clark Ross, which made its final call to Rothera Research Station in Antarctic on February 19 after 30 years of service. British Antarctic Survey (BAS) said the polar research vessel will be sold at the end of the 2020/2021 Antarctic season and replaced by the newly built RRS Sir David Attenborough.Rothera was the RRS James Clark Ross’s final call of the ship’s five-and-a-half-month mission to deliver scientific and operational staff to Antarctica, and to resupply the U.K. stations in Antarctica for another year.

Hutchison Ports Harwich International has become a new base for the British Antarctic Survey’s two ice-strengthened Royal Research Ships, the RRS James Clark Ross and the RRS Ernest Shackleton.The two ships are making their inaugural calls at the port in September before deploying to the Antarctic, where they will remain until summer 2019.Commenting on the calls, Mark Seaman, Finance Director, Hutchison Ports (UK), said: “Harwich International is well known for its excellent ferry links to the Continent, however, the port has a wide range of facilities and handles a variety of cargoes and ship types. We normally see general and project cargoes as well as both dry and liquid bulks…

Subsea Industries’ Ecospeed hull protection system has been selected for RRS Sir David Attenborough, the polar research ship under construction at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead, Liverpool, U.K. The £150 million contract to build the vessel, which Cammell Laird won in 2015, represents the biggest commercial shipbuilding contract in Britain for 30 years. The ship has been commissioned by the National Environment Research Council (NERC) and will be operated by British Antarctic Survey (BAS).

RRS Shackleton, RRS Endeavour, RRS Falcon, RRS Fish ‘N’ Chips and RRS Kanye are just a few of the suggestions submitted in an open campaign to name the U.K.’s next state-of-the-art polar research vessel. But leading the vote is a name that’s even more out of the ordinary: RRS Boaty McBoatface. The U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) last week issued a call for the public to recommend names for the country’s new £200 million polar research ship. “We would like the name to be inspirational and about environmental and polar science…

The public are being asked to name the UK’s new polar research ship. The current front-runner for the vessel's name is already gathering a lot of attention: RRS Boaty McBoatface. An open vote has been set up to name the next Royal Research Ship (RRS), with the public allowed to come up and vote for new names of the vessel. The £200m, 15,000-tonne, 128m-long vessel is being built at Cammell Laird on Merseyside, and is due to become operational in 2019 to explore the Arctic and Antarctic. The new ship will replace the existing RRS James Clark Ross and RRS Ernest Shackleton, which work in the Arctic and Antarctic. Anyone can propose a suitable name on the website and other ideas in the running are RRS Usain Boat, RRS Ice Ice Baby and RRS Boatimus Prime.

Invsat Ltd., the U.K.-based telecommunications systems integrator, has been awarded a prestigious contract to provide network communications for the British Antarctic Survey in one of the world’s most challenging environments. The VSAT (Very Small Aperture Terminal) network is connected via the NSS-7 satellite to Invsat’s earth station based at its Aberdeenshire HQ. Stabilized C-Band VSAT systems are being deployed on the two ice-strengthened Royal Research Ships that support the British Antarctic Survey's operations in the region. The two vessels are the RRS James Clark Ross, which has some of Britain's most advanced facilities for oceanographic research, and the RRS Ernest Shackleton which is primarily a logistics ship, used for the re-supply of the Survey's stations.