Craig is part of a team exploring new designs

A POLAR explorer who followed in the footsteps of Captain Scott will join the first leg of the Scottish Design Relay.

Craig Mathieson, the first explorer in residence with the Royal Scottish Geographical Society, will help a team of young people in Dundee come up with a new exploration-related design.

The Scottish Design Relay is a V&A Dundee project to inspire the next generation of designers by tapping into Scotland’s heritage.

Beginning in Dundee on August 30, about 100 young adults from six areas across Scotland will take part over the coming months.

The design prototypes created by each team will be displayed in V&A Dundee when the museum opens next year. Those involved in the first leg of the relay will study Dundee-built RRS Discovery, an exemplar of the city’s important design heritage.

Launched in 1901, Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s expedition ship was specially designed for Antarctic exploration, and was the first to be constructed specifically for scientific research.

Its crew also had the latest equipment to help them withstand the freezing climate, including fur-lined windproof clothing, reindeer skin boots and tinted wooden goggles to prevent snow blindness.

Craig, from Buchlyvie, Stirlingshire, was 12 when he decided he was going to reach the South Pole after reading The Worst Journey in the World, a memoir of the 1910–1913 British Antarctic Expedition led by Captain Scott.

He achieved his goal at the age of 35 and now runs The Polar Academy, a charity giving secondary school pupils the chance to go on an expedition across Greenland.

Craig said: “I think the Scottish Design Relay is really refreshing, and who knows what will come out of it.”

Craig Mathieson