Planet’s hopes rest in ship
Polar research vessel will become a crucial asset, Attenborough predicts at launch
metres long tonne hull crew, plus scientists
Sir David Attenborough said Britain’s new polar research ship which bears his name could be key to preserving the planet as he launched it for the first time.
The veteran broadcaster pushed the button at the Cammell Laird shipyard in Birkenhead at the weekend to allow the hull of the 10,000-ton vessel to slip into the Mersey.
The 92-year-old said it was an “extraordinarily emotional moment” as the £200 million ($391m) ship, named the RRS Sir David Attenborough, entered the water.
The vessel, which received more than 124,000 public votes to be called “Boaty McBoatface” in an online poll, is the most technically advanced survey ship built and will accommodate 60 scientists on research trips to Antarctica when completed.
The ship carries a yellow-hulled submarine which can descend as far as 4000m to collect information about the temperature and salinity of the ocean, as well as water flow speed, turbulence and fast-flowing currents.
Attenborough predicted it would become a crucial asset in protecting the planet.
He said: “The perils facing this planet are far, far greater than they have ever been in its entire history, or at least since the end of the dinosaurs, certainly for the last few million years.
“There’s nothing to compare with the perils we are facing, not only in the scale but in the speed at which they are happening and of course we now know that we are responsible for a lot of these changes that are taking place.
“You have to know what they are before you know how you can fix them so this ship is going to be key to the future of our planet.
“When 100 years ago this country sent people down to the South Pole, we were the pioneers in exploring the Antarctic,” Attenborough said.
“When we did so, I expect the reason we did was the South Pole seemed as far away as it could possibly get to be on this planet.
“Now, 100 years later, we realise that that remote place is, in fact, key to the whole understanding of the planet. What goes on down there affects the whole of the Earth on which we live.”
Captain Robert Falcon Scott led a team of British explorers aiming to become the first to reach the South Pole. His party arrived at the Pole on January 17, 1912, but found they had been beaten by five weeks by Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen.
Scott and his men died while Sir David Attenborough returning after a planned rendezvous with support teams failed.
Speaking after the launch, Attenborough said: “It was an extraordinarily emotional moment. I’m surprised myself really. I’ve never seen a ship of that size get down a slipway and there was something very noble about it and very emotional. Irresistible.
“And to think that it’s going to go to the other end of the globe and do such valuable work and carry so many people from this country who will be working to find out all they can about the working of our planet is a marvellous thought.”
Attenborough pressed the button to launch the vessel into the water in front of more than 2000 shipyard workers, scientists, engineers and guests.
In the water, tugboats pulled the ship into a “wet basin” where construction work will continue.
Once complete the vessel will be comprised of one million pieces of steel, 5000 valves, and 435km of cabling. The monument to Captain James Cook has tumbled down.
critically important it is a symbol and trigger point that will wake people up to a lack ownership around this significant issue.”
He believed the ThamesCoromandel District Council could have been done more to save the monument and the bank of land on which it sat.
“People around here have been letting them know for some time the erosion has been getting bad,” he said.
“The only thing we’ve seen is some safety stakes and safety netting put up so people couldn’t walk off the side.”
A council spokeswoman said teams had been working to save the monument, but had been restricted to using so-called “soft” techniques to reinforce the land because the erosion did not threaten private property or a road. These involved efforts to regenerate the dune systems with sand “push-ups” and plantings to hold soil together.
She said erosion had advanced quite rapidly in the last few months.