RRS Sir David Attenborough

Background

In 2014, the UK Government announced funding for the construction of a new polar research vessel for the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) to replace a pair of existing ships. This new ship was intended not only to be fully equipped with the latest instrumentation for the purposes of carrying out research in polar regions, for which it would have an improved icebreaking capability and greater endurance over the existing polar research vessel, but also to serve as a logistic support vessel for BAS teams in inshore locations.

BAS contracted Houlder Ltd to undertake the basic design in which suggestions for the final configuration of the new ship were taken. Following the consultation period, in 2015, Rolls-Royce Holdings was selected to execute the detailed design and Cammell Laird in Birkenhead was selected as the preferred bidder to construct the ship.

Description

The ship will be about 125 metres (410 ft) long, with a beam of about 24 metres (79 ft). Her draught will be about 7 metres (23 ft). Her cruising speed will be 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph) with a range of 19,000 nautical miles (35,000 km; 22,000 mi) at that speed. She will be capable of carrying a helicopter and will have a capacity for approximately 900 cubic metres (32,000 cu ft) of cargo. The ship will have the capacity to break through ice 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) thick at a speed of 3 knots (5.6 km/h; 3.5 mph). Accommodation will be provided for 30 crew and 60 research staff.

Construction

The first steel for the construction of the ship was cut in July 2016. The keel laying ceremony for the ship, yard number 1390, took place on 17 October 2016.

Naming poll

In March 2016, the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) announced that members of the public were being asked to suggest names for the ship. Names previously used would not be eligible, but otherwise it was open to suggestions. Former BBC Radio Jersey presenter James Hand jokingly suggested Boaty McBoatface, a name the public liked, and which quickly became the most popular choice. The NERC stated that they would have the final say, and that the most popular would not necessarily be the one chosen.

Following a public consultation by NERC to use the "#NameOurShip" hashtag, the name attracting the most public support was RRS Boaty McBoatface. As the poll was non-binding, the choice was made to name the ship after naturalist Sir David Attenborough, but also to use the Boaty McBoatface name for one of the craft's underwater vehicles.

A petition calling for Sir David Attenborough to change his name to Sir Boaty McBoatface "in the interest of democracy and humour" soon received over 2,000 signatures.

In response to the poll, the Science and Technology Committee, a select committee of the House of Lords, announced that they were to review the process by which the ship was named. NERC chief executive Professor Duncan Wingham and NERC head of communications Julia Maddock faced the committee on 10 May. Professor James Wilsdon, an outreach director at Sheffield University, told MPs that he voted for "Boaty McBoatface". Despite the controversy, NERC directors felt that their poll was a successful initiative in that it generated a lot of publicity regarding their organisation and research mission among the lay public.

British science minister Jo Johnson later announced that the Boaty McBoatface name would be used for one of the remotely controlled submersibles aboard the ship.

In popular culture

On 12 May 2016, Google released a natural language parser named Parsey McParseface in reference to the boat naming contest, as part of their open-source SyntaxNet neural network framework.

In September 2016, the US Air Force formally named its new stealth bomber currently under development as the Northrop Grumman B-21 "Raider". The name was chosen through a survey of airmen; among the rejected names was "Stealthy McStealthface".

On 5 August 2016, Cartoon Network's long running animated series, Regular Show, released an episode titled "Spacey McSpaceTree".