Evening Telegraph (First Edition)
Firm steps in to keep Discovery shipshape by stopping the rot aboard famed vessel
AN ICONIC Dundee tourist attraction has been undergoing vital treatment work - as charity bosses look for more funding for long term repairs.
Timber preservation and asbestos services firm Intona has answered the “all hands on deck” cry and repaired rot on the port side stern of Captain Robert Falcon Scott’s ship RSS Discovery - free of charge.
Intona offered to come on board as a charitable gesture to supply staff and equipment to guard against the risk of long-term damage until further funding can be secured.
The works came after maritime industry experts Beckett Rankine estimated that around £350,000 of work was urgently needed on the famous vessel.
Deirdre Robertson, chief executive of Dundee Heritage Trust said the repairs were part of an estimated £1.3 million programme required in the coming years.
She said: “The most pressing of the urgent work identified was the rot to the port-side stern.
“We had been concerned that it might be dry rot so were reassured when local timber preservation specialists, Intona, ruled that out.
“We were even more grateful to them for their incredible generosity in then offering to complete the rot treatment works pro bono as an ‘in-kind’ charitable donation.
“Dundee Heritage Trust is a charity that is 98.7% reliant on its own resources usually, and was particularly badly hit by the Covid19 crisis.
“The rot treatment won’t cure all the problems in that area but stabilising it will, we believe, give us eight months to a year of breathing space while we investigate the most appropriate longer term solution.”
Intona directors Ron and Irene Mitchell said they were “delighted” to be able to help the ship in it’s hour of need.
Ron added: “We had initially been asked to come down and do a survey on the ship, and there were different types of wet rot.
“The type of repairs that are needed require a shipwright to work on it.
“We did say we could slow down the process by tackling it with a fungicidal solution, until such time as they get the funds together to get the shipwrights in.
“Two members of staff went down for a few hours this week to put a treatment on the timbers.
“It’s the first time we’ve carried out any works on the ship, given the current situation we wanted to help reduce the spread of the rot.”
It comes as the trust heard last week they have been successful at the expression of interest stage with an application to National Lottery Heritage Fund.
Securing funding for the “ambitious transformation” of Discovery Point as a whole would see the longer term future of the ship as “absolutely central”, Deirdre said.
She added: “The wider transformation of Discovery Point also includes tackling the chronic problems the building has with fuel efficiency and opening up the Dundee Dome as a new tourist attraction.