The RRS Sir David Attenborough will carry a submersible named Boaty McBoatface. Credit: Pete Bucktrout (British Antarctic Survey/ Cammell Laird)

The United Kingdom’s new polar research vessel has become a national obsession. A proposal to christen the ship Boaty McBoatface captured the public imagination — so much so that the decision to name the ship instead after broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough triggered questions in a parliamentary inquiry.

But the RRS Sir David Attenborough, which will probe both the Arctic and Antarctic, is also notable because it will carry more scientists and push deeper into polar ice than any UK research vessel ever has. It joins a wave of ice-strengthened research vessels — from Norway to China to Australia — that promise to expand scientists’ ability to explore harsh polar environments (see ‘Ships of the future’).

China is soliciting bids to build a large research icebreaker to accompany its existing ship Xuelong, and the Australian government signed a contract last month for a replacement for its ageing Aurora Australis. Germany has started the process of replacing its vessel Polarstern, and Sweden is beginning to discuss what to do after its ship Oden is retired towards the end of the next decade. (A proposed pan-European icebreaker, costing up to €800 million (US$900 million), is on hold owing to its enormous price tag.)

The 129-metre-long Attenborough is designed by the team behind the Kronprins Haakon, an icebreaker being built for the Norwegian Polar Institute in Tromsø. When Kronprins Haakon sets off on its first science cruise in 2018, it will give Norwegian researchers a serious upgrade in their access to Arctic seas. It will replace a smaller vessel that can carry fewer scientists and operate only in light ice. “It’s a whole new world for us,” says project manager Øystein Mikelborg of the Norwegian Polar Institute.

Over ice

Within weeks, architects will finalize the Attenborough’s design and workers in Merseyside, UK, will begin cutting steel for its hull, on track for a 2019 delivery.

Designers are cramming as many research goodies as possible into the £200-million (US$290-million) ship. The Attenborough will have a helicopter deck and, unlike Britain’s existing polar-research vessels, a hangar. This will allow scientists to fly to otherwise inaccessible lakes or islands in Antarctica. And the Attenborough will have a hole in the hull known as a moon pool, allowing researchers to deploy oceanographic and geological equipment more smoothly and safely than by swinging it off the side of the ship.

Laboratory spaces will be kept at different temperatures, allowing storage and experiments of different types. The deck will have extra room for custom-made equipment for different cruises. Modern fibre-optic cables will deliver a live camera feed from as deep as 6,000 metres, from a remotely operated vehicle that will be called Boaty McBoatface, in a concession to the public vote.

Yet this increased research capability comes at a price: fewer days of actual science.

The British Antarctic Survey (BAS) currently operates two polar vessels, the 25-year-old RRS James Clark Ross for science, and the 21-year-old RRS Ernest Shackleton, which delivers equipment, food and people to its bases. To cut annual operating costs by 20%, the bigger Attenborough will replace both ships.

Instead of 180 days of science a year, UK scientists will get 150. The rest of the time (and space on the ship) will go to ferrying cargo. “I don’t like to use the word compromise, but there is a trade-off,” says Andrew Jeffries, project manager for the new boat and a BAS engineer in Cambridge, UK.

There have been other trade-offs between research and logistics. Ship designers have had to place the vessel’s enormous diesel generators on isolating platforms to make the ship run silently, to avoid disturbing seismic and biological acoustics studies. The current design may also have to be tweaked to avoid vents from the helicopter fuel storage opening directly into areas where atmospheric scientists were counting on having clean air for their measurements.

Even with these trade-offs, researchers are eager for the Attenborough to launch. Not only will it be able to push through thicker ice and carry more scientists, but the ship will also be able to explore deeper environments than any other UK research vessel, says Katrin Linse, a deep-sea biologist at the BAS. That ability will allow it to carry out the first direct sampling of the 8.5-kilometre-deep South Sandwich Trench in the southern Atlantic Ocean. “We might find a new ecosystem there that we are not aware of yet,” she says. “It’s pretty exciting to get a new vessel. That only happens once every 30–40 years.”

The RRS James Clark Ross is one of Britain’s two ageing polar ships, which are being replaced. Credit: Pete Bucktrout/British Antarctic Survey.