Mcboatiful...david launches £200m ship
I hardly recognised him. He’s skin and bones
A POLAR research ship people wanted to call Boaty Mcboatface was launched yesterday by the man it was renamed after – naturalist Sir David Attenborough.
Boaty Mcboatface came top in an online poll, so ministers stepped in to give it a more appropriate name.
He called the launch at Cammell Laird’s shipyard in Birkenhead, Merseyside, “an extraordinarily emotional moment”.
He added: “I’ve never seen a ship of that size go down a slipway and there was something very noble about it. I am more honoured than I can say that this wonderful hull has got my name on it.”
A field gun was fired by soldiers from 103 Regiment Royal Artillery as the £200million ship entered the River Mersey.
It replaces the James Clark Ross and the Shackleton and is the largest commercial ship to be built in Britain in three decades.
It is also the most technically advanced survey ship and will accommo- date 60 scientists on trips to Antarctica. Sir David, 92, said: “The perils facing this planet are far, far greater than ever. “There is nothing to compare with the perils we are facing, not only in their scale but in the speed at which they are happening. “You have to know what they are before you know how you can fix them, so this ship will be a key to the salvage of our planet, or at least its preservation.”