The United Kingdom has been a leader in Antarctic exploration and research for almost two hundred and fifty years ever since Capt. James Cook circumnavigated the continent during his epic second Round the World voyage of 1772/75. The ‘White Continent’ has held a deep fascination for men including the great explorers of the ‘Heroic Age’ of the first decade of the twentieth century such as William Speirs Bruce, Capt. Robert Falcon Scott, Roald Amundsen, Sir Douglas Mawson and Sir Ernest Shackleton. They and their colleagues crossed the continent in appalling weather conditions which tested their endurance to the limit even to the point of the sacrifice of their lives. Sir Douglas Mawson (1882-1958) of Australia, in particular, successfully combined the ability to explore Antarctica systematically with the discipline of scientific work, and was the leader of the Australian Antarctic Expedition, which discovered and explored George V Land and Queen Mary Land during 1911/14. There were further expeditions during the inter war years such as the British Graham Land Expedition of 1934/37 to discover more about the Graham Land peninsula and the regions behind the Weddell Sea ice sheets.

In 1943, the British Government felt it was necessary during wartime to establish permanent bases in Antarctica in the national interest, and Operation Tabarin was mounted during that year. The intention of this naval operation, named after a Parisian nightclub, was to establish two Antarctic bases and to retain Allied control of the southern side of the Drake Passage, between the Antarctic peninsula and Cape Horn. Tabarin used the Royal Research Ship William Scoresby of 1926 and others and successfully established permanent meteorological stations in the Falkland Islands Dependencies. The Falkland Islands Dependencies consisted of four areas. South Georgia, South Shetlands, South Orkneys and Graham Land, and during 1944/46 the postage to these remote areas used ordinary Falkland Islands stamps overprinted in red with the name of the Dependency. Some of these stamps depicted Antarctic ships e.g. the Royal Research Ships William Scoresby of 1926 and Discovery II of 1929. In 1944, a programme of scientific research and exploration in geology, biology and survey was started from three bases, one on Deception Island in the South Shetlands and two on the Antarctic peninsula at Port Lockroy and Hope Bay. Deception Island is roughly circular in shape with a diameter of 7.5 miles and has a natural harbour in the centre of the island formed from a huge flooded volcanic caldera and with a narrow entrance only 755 feet wide.

The research continued and widened in 1945 when the whole project was taken over by the Colonial Office under the name ‘Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS)’. This expanded through yearly expeditions to the region, and in turn FIDS became the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) in 1962. After the International Geophysical Year (IGY) of 1957/58, national claims to Antarctic territory were suspended after the fourteen Articles of the Antarctic Treaty were published on 1st December 1959 and came into force on 23rd June 1961. The ‘White Continent’ is today devoted to only research and not to commercial gain. Virtually all research in Antarctica is today carried out from permanent bases established by the United States, Russia, United Kingdom, France, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Argentina, India, China, Chile, Uruguay, Norway, Ukraine and other nations.

Scientific missions today are carried out under the auspices of international scientific committees, and include missions of enormous significance amid huge environmental concerns about ‘Global Warming’ and the stability of the Antarctic ice sheet and the consequent effect on world sea level changes. The first warning of a severe ‘hole’ in the ozone layer above Antarctica was given in October 1985 by Dr. Joe Farman and his team from the British Antarctic Survey. Later, NASA scientists confirmed that this was due to pollution of the atmosphere caused by Northern industrial nations, affecting forever the pristine nature of Antarctica. Weather observations and core samples are continuously taken today, sometimes from several miles below glaciers, in order to predict future patterns of global warming. It is a remarkable fact that with the rapid thaw and retreat of ice and snow sheets, new islands are regularly appearing on the Antarctic peninsula. International names are now adopted for them instead of the previous predominantly British naming systems.

The Work Of The British Antarctic Survey

The British Antarctic Survey is a major research centre of the National Environment Research Council (NERC) and conducts the following important work:-

– Providing a national capability for Antarctic research and logistics

– Carrying out scientific research, long term observations and surveys

– Providing a focus for international cooperation and programme co-ordination

– Concentration on fundamental issues of the science strategy of NERC of the Antarctic environment

The missions are carried out from five permanent bases in British Antarctic Territory and two on South Georgia:-

Rothera Research Station on Adelaide Island, Antarctic peninsula

Halley Research Station on the Brunt Ice Shelf in the Weddell Sea

Signy Research Station on Signy Island, South Orkneys

Fossil Bluff Logistics Facility on Alexander Island, Antarctic peninsula

Sky Blu Logistics Facility in Ellsworth Land to south of Antarctic peninsula

Bird Island Research Station off the NW tip of South Georgia

King Edward Point Research Station midway along the northern coast of South Georgia at Cumberland East Bay

However, only Rothera and Halley and both South Georgia bases are manned throughout the year, the remaining bases are manned only during the Antarctic summer. The work on Bird Island, as its names implies, is mainly for the ringing of birds to find out their patterns of living and migration, while the King Edward Point Research Station is mainly for fisheries research with a new station opened in March, 2001. The current Halley Research Station is Halley V and is equipped with a ramp for the unloading of supplies to this station and the new Halley VI station. Halley Research Station was established in 1956 and inherited from the Royal Society in 1959, and Rothera Point Research Station has been permanently occupied since 25th October 1975 and has a wharf for the unloading of supplies.

The Red Fids And BAS Ships

There have been six owned FIDS and BAS ships plus one chartered vessel from the red hulled Lauritzen polar fleet between 1947 and the present time. Kista Dan completed in May 1952 of 1,355 dwt was the chartered vessel, and she was rebuilt in 1959 with accommodation for 36 passengers for the seven year BAS charter. The owned ships that have made this important Antarctic research possible are:-

John Biscoe (Deployed 1947, Sold 1956)

Chartered mostly small wooden vessels were used for supply purposes after operation Tabarin, a joint undertaking by the admiralty and the Colonial office, and in the years after the establishment of the Falklands islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) when full control had passed to the Colonial office. Vivian Fuchs was appointed field leader in 1947, later becoming Sir Vivian Fuchs and a director of BAS from its beginning until 1973. He obtained a better vessel for re-supplying the four stations, three occupied and one unoccupied, in an American net layer built in 1944 at Wilmington (Delaware). She was purchased for $75,000 by FIDS in 1947 and renamed John Biscoe (1) after the English explorer who had discovered parts of Antarctica in the early 1830s. She was of 870 grt on dimensions of 184.5 feet by 37 feet with two decks and powered by two 6-cylinder Busch-Sulzer diesels manufactured in St. Louis, with each connected to an electric motor and a single screw shaft to give a service speed of 13 knots. She was refitted for ice conditions with her bow lifting forks removed and her hull sheathed in three inches of greenheart timber, and sailed on her first Antarctic assignment from Southampton on 20th December 1947. after various adventures and incidents, she managed to unload many tonnes of stores at the Stonington and Hope Bay bases. She was surveyed in October 1948 before her second Antarctic season, and went on to successfully relieve Antarctic stations on eight missions.

on 2nd February 1952, when a party of British scientists attempted to land from the ship at Hope Bay, graham Land, an argentine shore party fired shots over their heads. Eventually, a ship with longer range and greater cargo carrying capacity was required, and John Biscoe was renamed in 1956 as Pretext, her wartime name, to free her name for a new ship ordered on the Clyde. Capt. Harry Kirkwood had commanded her as John Biscoe and when asked to recommend a ship for the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1957 to take the New Zealand party to the Ross Dependency, he recommended this ship. in June 1956, she was sold to the royal New Zealand Navy and commissioned as HMNZS Endeavour, the name of Capt. Cook’s barque. She carried out a further five successful missions to supply Antarctic bases until decommissioned in June 1962 and sold to sealers and renamed arctic Endeavour for operations in the arctic. She foundered on 11th November 1982 off Newfoundland.

Shackleton (Deployed 1955, Sold 1983)

The engines aft Baltic coaster Arendal of 590 grt was purchased by FIDS in 1955 to be the second owned supply vessel. She had been completed in February of that year by Solvesborgs Varv, Solvesborg in Sweden and equipped with a 6-cylinder M.A.N. diesel manufactured in Augsburg to give a service speed of 11.5 knots. She had dimensions of 200 feet by 36 feet and during her conversion for Antarctic work, a five tonne mobile crane was loaded on to her twin hatches above her single hold, and her superstructure extended by 32 feet to accommodate 32 research staff and 30 crew on two decks of cabins. Most importantly, she was fitted with ice cutting fins in front of her controllable pitch propeller, and she sailed from Southampton on her first Antarctic expedition in December 1955 as Shackleton, remeasured at 1,103 grt and able to carry one thousand tonnes of supplies. She was named after Sir Ernest Shackleton, who had sailed on the Discovery, Endurance, Nimrod, Quest and Terra Nova expeditions. She had many incidents including almost sinking in her second season of 1956/57 after striking a growler, a small iceberg, while sailing from Signy island in the South Orkneys to South Georgia. all unnecessary passengers and crew were rescued by HMS Protector, the Antarctic naval guardian ship, and Shackleton was patched up at Stromness on South Georgia. She was given extra strengthening to her hull during a later refit in the U.K.

at Deception island in 1966, Shackleton met and provisioned Bill Tilman’s SV Mischief, the first private expedition to visit a BAS base and the first British private expedition to the Antarctic since that of Duncan Carse of 1951/57, which remapped the island of South Georgia. Shackleton was present at the evacuations from Deception island after volcanic eruptions in December 1967 and again in February, 1969. She was transferred to NERC in 1969 but continued to visit Antarctica, and in 1976 was fired upon by the argentine destroyer Almirante Storni in a precursor to the Falklands conflict. She had on board Lord Shackleton, son of Antarctic explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, and was carrying out an economic survey of the Falklands. She visited Antarctica a further five times on behalf of NERC and continued geophysical research until sold in 1983 for commercial survey work under the name of Geotek Beta. She was renamed Profiler a year later and then Sea Profiler in 1992 by Gardline Geosurvey Ltd. She gave 57 years service before being broken up in 2012.

John Biscoe (2) (Deployed 1956, Sold 1992)

She was launched on 11th June 1956 as yard number 778 at the Paisley yard of Fleming & Ferguson Ltd. and had dimensions of 220 feet by 40 feet with a draft of 16 feet, and measured 1,584 grt as a closed shelterdecker with two decks. She had a short forecastle of 26 feet and a Bridge deck of length 132 feet with accommodation for 33 crew and 34 research staff. The hull was strengthened for ice conditions with an ice breaking knuckle at her bow and ice cutting fins in front of her propeller, and her hull was sub-divided by four bulkheads in case of grounding damage. She had a welldeck forward with two holds served by two ten tonne derricks on the foremast with the smaller aft hold served by a three tonne derrick. She carried 197 tonnes of water ballast and oil bunkers of 397 tonnes, and was diesel electric powered by twin 8-cylinder diesel engines of 1,830 bhp by Blackstone & Co. Ltd., Stamford connected to the main generator to give a service speed of 12 knots. She needed two more generators for electrical lighting and services, and had the essential large crow’s nest high up on the foremast for help in conning the ship through thick pack ice to open ‘leads’ ahead.

Her first Master was Bill Johnston in the 1956/57, and under his command the Duke of Edinburgh joined the ship after transfer from the royal Yacht Britannia for part of the voyage along the coast of graham Land in early 1957. The Duke of Edinburgh was an honoured guest on his return homewards after opening the 1956 Melbourne Olympic games and visiting New Zealand. John Biscoe made her first visit to Halley research Station in the 1959/60 season and carried out the relief and re-supply of all BAS bases on the Antarctic peninsula, South Orkney islands and South Georgia. She had many adventures with her hull strengthened on at least two occasions after suffering damage, including help from two American icebreakers in getting out of Marguerite Bay on the Antarctic peninsula in early 1960. She sailed from Grimsby at the end of September each year bound for Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Port Stanley, and after loading more supplies at Port Stanley would reach Antarctica in December. She arrived back at Grimsby early in May of the following year and would then proceed to the Tyne for her annual refit.

John Biscoe (2) had five Masters during her 35 years of service with BAS until replaced by the new James Clark Ross in 1991. after 1975 her joint Masters were Malcolm Phelps and Chris Elliott, with Chris having joined BAS as her Third officer in 1967, becoming Second officer in 1970, and he established the successful offshore Biological Programme missions after the ship was altered in 1983 for hydrographic and biological work. The Bridge Deck was extended and the aft three tonne derrick removed, and a very visible black funnel extension helped control excessive soot and smoke over her decks while trawling operations were carried out over her stern. This biological trawling work ended in 1991 with her arrival and lay up at Grimsby on 8th May 1991. She was sold at the end of 1992 to Mohamed Abdelsalam Ossman of Tartous in Syria, and was renamed Fayza Express and continued in service as a research vessel until her arrival on 2nd March 2004 at Aliaga in Turkey for scrapping.

Bransfield (Deployed 1970, Sold 1999)

This was the second ship of this name as the first Bransfield was used in November, 1943 on operation Tabarin but was so unseaworthy that she did not leave British waters, having only sailed the short distance from Tilbury to Portsmouth after she sprang a serious leak. The second Bransfield was launched as Yard number 508 at the Leith yard of Robb Caledon Shipbuilders Ltd. on 4th September 1970 by Lady Joyce Fuchs, wife of the then Director of BAS. She was designed by consultants Graham & Woolnaugh of Liverpool as an ice strengthened cargo supply vessel but also had limited facilities for onboard research. She was named after Edward Bransfield of the royal Navy (1785-1852), who discovered the north west coast of the Antarctic peninsula in 1819/20 and became the first man to chart this area as well as the South Shetlands. He claimed King George island and Clarence island for the British crown. The new Bransfield was of length 325 feet by 60 feet with a draft of 22 feet and measured 4,842 grt and was classed to Lloyd’s 100 a1 ice Class. She was diesel electric powered with twin 8-cylinder Mirrlees Blackstone diesels of 6,400 bhp driving twin generators connected to twin electric motors and connected to a single screw shaft and variable pitch propeller. She had a service speed of 13.5 knots using both engines and 10.75 knots on one engine, with a range of 90 days endurance on one engine and 55 days on two engines.

Bransfield was primarily a supply ship with ice Classification Lloyds 100a1 ice class a, and a cargo capacity of 2,917 tonnes (3,450 cubic metres) of supplies in three holds with her three hatches served by a forward five tonne crane and a 15 tonne derrick over the aft hold, although this derrick was later replaced by a crane. She had an icebreaker bow, a helicopter pad aft and a crow’s nest on her main navigation mast, from where her speed and course could be controlled. She had a long exhaust extension to her funnel to keep soot away from her decks. She carried a crew of 37 and had accommodation for 58 research staff and her limited laboratory area was 550 square feet in area. She would sail from Grimsby in October each year bound for Rio de Janeiro, Montevideo and Port Stanley and after loading more supplies at Port Stanley would arrive in Antarctica in December. after completing her mission, she arrived back in Grimsby in May of the following year and then proceeded to the Tyne for her annual refit followed by an occasional charter for oil related work in the North Sea or arctic regions.

Bransfield represented NERC at the Silver Jubilee review of the fleet at Spithead in July 1977, and her only blemish in her long service was an engine room fire in the Weddell Sea during the 1993/94 season. She was commanded for much of her career by joint Masters, Capt. John Cole and Capt. Stewart Laurence, until her final arrival back at Grimsby on 6th May 1999. She was then immediately sold to Rieber Shipping of Norway as part of the contract for the long term charter of her replacement, Ernest Shackleton, the former Polar Queen. Bransfield was later sold to a scrapping company and arrived for breaking up at the end of 1999 and was demolished during Millennium year.

James Clark Ross (Deployed 1991)

James Clark Ross is primarily an oceanographic and seismographic research ship, and is built of part higher tensile steel to withstand the Antarctic ice. She is of 5,732 grt on dimensions of 99.04 metres by 18.9 metres with a draft of 6.5 metres. She has two holds and is equipped with 30 tonne gantry crane mounted ‘midships, a 20 tonne ‘a’ frame mounted aft, and a 20 tonne folding jib crane over the forward main hatch to handle 1,500 cubic metres of supplies and scientific equipment as well as fifteen TEU containers. She is classed to Super ice Class 1a and carries oil in deep tanks for the base heating requirements, and is equipped with extensive ‘wet’ laboratories and ‘dry’ laboratories. She has two complete decks with a third deck forward and aft of the alternator room, and is equipped for geophysical studies with a compressor bank to power a seismic air gun array, and plenty of room aft and on the starboard deck for scientific equipment deployed by aft and ‘midships gantries. She can deploy a wide range of sampling gear for biological studies, and benefits from modern underway instrumentation. She can proceed at a steady two knots through level sea ice one metre thick, and in heavy pack ice a compressed air system rolls the ship from side to side freeing her passage. She is diesel electric and powered by four Wartsila 6-cylinder four stroke oil engines of 11,814 bhp driving two generators connected to two electric motors driving one fixed pitch propeller. a service speed of 12 knots is obtained when underway to and from Antarctica, and she has an extremely low noise signature to allow sensitive underwater acoustic equipment to operate efficiently. She is equipped with two water jet thrusters, and has a long range surveillance radar inside a radome on her navigation mast, with a taller mast behind her yellow funnel.

She is named after admiral Sir James Clark Ross R.N., the 19th century arctic and Antarctic explorer in command of the Enterprise, Erebus, Hecla, Isabella, Lightning, Pagoda, Scotia and Terror expeditions. She was launched at the Wallsend yard of Swan Hunter Shipbuilders Ltd. on 1st December 1990 by H.M. The Queen. The launch was a very colourful occasion with Her Majesty dressed in a long red coat and red hat to match the ship, and the ceremony of dedication and launch speeches were conducted with great dignity. James Clark Ross cost £35 million and has accommodation for 41 passengers and 36 crew. She is an attractive vessel with a forward sloping front to her superstructure, and she has been in service for twenty years. She entered Portsmouth Naval Base on 1st June 2011 for her annual refit in one of the big dry docks, and then undertook survey work in the arctic on behalf of commercial survey companies while waiting to sail in October of that year to Port Stanley and Antarctica.

after arriving at Port Stanley, James Clark Ross then traversed the Weddell Sea during her recent deployment, stopping every few days for coring work using the gravity corer and the box corer, both being messy tasks. Water conductivity, temperature and depth measurements are also made by deploying the CTD machine, and her laboratories are used to full capacity with work on these water samples. after her main hydrographic and seismographic mission was completed, she then, as in previous years, visited Halley and Rothera bases, and then Signy base off the South Orkneys as well as Grytviken, Bird island and King Edward Point bases on South Georgia before making for Port Stanley in the Falklands. all BAS ships are registered in Port Stanley, and she sailed from there on 21st March 2012 for her final Antarctic scientific cruise of the season concerned with oceanographic and underwater geological research. During the season, scientists and their supplies and equipment were picked up from the bases, particularly Halley Base at the Weddell Sea ice shelf and the Signy island Base, the latter being closed down for the season after its environmental monitoring work was concluded. James Clark Ross then headed back to Port Stanley, experiencing some rough weather in the Drake Passage up to Cape Horn. after the research scientists had concluded documenting and packing up their research specimens into boxes, she headed home from Port Stanley, arriving in the U.K. in June 2012.

She has seven decks named as follows:-

Navigation deck – Bridge, wheelhouse, chart room, ‘midships gantry

Bridge deck – Master, Chief Engineer, Chief Scientist, Mate, Second officer

Boat deck – Two berth cabins, hospital, doctor, lifeboat, bar

Forecastle deck – Two and four berth cabins, computer, electronics, bathymetry, echo sounder and other functional rooms

Upper deck – Wet and dry laboratories and six other specialist laboratories

tween deck – Steering gear, seismic compressors, scientific hold, traction winch room, engine control room, incinerator room, gravity meter room, explosives room

Lower deck – Engine room, alternator room, auxiliary machinery, bow thruster, stern thruster and main cargo hold.

Ernest Shackleton (Deployed 1999)

Ernest Shackleton is primarily a resupply vessel for the Antarctic bases, and is ice strengthened and capable of a wide range of logistic tasks as well as having ‘wet’ and ‘dry’ laboratories for a scientific capability. She has the cargo tender ‘Tula’ on deck for ship to shore transfer of equipment for those occasions when she cannot berth alongside at bases. She was built in 1995 at Leirvik in Norway by Kvaerner Klevin Leirvik a/S as Polar Queen for Rieber Shipping of Bergen. She was purchased by BAS in 1999 and renamed Ernest Shackleton, and is of 4,028 grt on dimensions of 80.0 metres by 17.0 metres with a draft of 7.4 metres. She is an ice strengthened supply ship but can also conduct hydrographic and seismographic research. She has one crane of fifty tonne capacity and another of ten tonne capacity to handle 2,134 tonnes of supplies in her single hold, plus heating oil for the bases as well as twelve containers on deck. She is powered by two Normo 6-cylinder four stroke diesel engines of 7,192 bhp by Ulstein Bergen a/S, with clutches, flexible couplings and gearing to a screw shaft and a controllable pitch propeller giving a service speed of 12 knots. She has two forward thrusters and two aft thrusters, which are very useful for manoeuvring in light sea ice. She has a large crow’s nest high up on her main yellow painted navigation mast, from where her speed and course can be controlled.

She has accommodation for 48 persons and is chartered for four months each year for commercial oil related work e.g. surveying and inspecting oil risers and legs of oil rigs for survey companies such as Fugro.

after her annual summer refit in 2011, she then departed from Immingham in early November, and loaded aviation fuel at Portsmouth for her mission to the Weddell Sea, and had an uneventful voyage to Cape Town. The Cape weather was glorious and all on board made the most of it, exploring Table Mountain, Camp Beach, inland wine farms and the tourist waterfront area. She sailed from Cape Town on 13th December and soon ran into heavy Cape rollers from the south west that brought a large number of scientists to the doctor for seasick medication. on passing Bouvet island, she turned due south and encountered the first ice at latitude 58 south. She was in radio contact with the South African polar vessel S.A. Agulhas, which was headed for Atka Bukta near the German Neumeyer base. radio messages telling where thicker ice would be met were extremely useful, and the motion of the ship became stable in thin pack ice. She finally broke through to the shore lead on Christmas Eve and cruised along the ice shelf in a westerly direction bound for Halley v Base. a satellite picture showed an extremely large iceberg blocking the way at Stancomb Wills ice tongue, which juts out substantially from the coast. However, the iceberg drifted away to leave a gap and on Christmas Day, she stopped in the ice for all crew and scientists to take a stroll on the ice or play football before the traditional Christmas feast and team photograph.

Ernest Shackleton arrived at Halley v Base early on Boxing Day with offloading commencing at once. The mooring posts were still in place from last summer and there was thin first year ice clinging to the more substantial stuff against the ice shelf. The permanent Halley v staff came down to give a briefing on the use of the unloading ramp, and a twelve hour shift was worked until all supplies were unloaded onto large sledges, and the base heating oil was pumped ashore. The Halley vi Base still had some teething problems to sort out and would not be ready for occupation until the middle of 2012, the Antarctic winter. The New Year was seen in on the bridge of the ship with mulled wine for all, and Ernest Shackleton departed Halley v Base on 3rd January 2012 for Port Stanley. a second relief voyage was then made back to Halley Base, and after a her return to Port Stanley, she departed from there on 29th April for the U.K. after a very busy and successful Antarctic season. The voyage north was uneventful, and after a call at Madeira to top up her fuel tanks she arrived back at Immingham on 26th May 2012. The ship has six decks named as follows:-

Navigation Bridge (3rd Bridge deck) – Wheelhouse, Chart room

Main Bridge deck (2nd Bridge deck) – Master, Chief Engineer, Ship’s office

Boat deck (1st Bridge deck) – Client office, library, two berth cabins, cargo crane, life rafts, fast rescue craft, helicopter deck and helicopter

‘a’ deck – Forward cargo hatch, wet and dry laboratories, hospital, bosun store

‘B’ deck – Forward and aft cargo holds, wet and dry laboratories, engine control room, galley, mess, two lounges and TV room

‘C’ deck – Forward and aft cargo holds, engineer’s stores and workshop, switchboard room, laundry, refrigerated stores room

The two civilian ships operated by the BAS are complemented by the capabilities of the royal Navy’s ice patrol vessel that operates in the same waters. This was HMS Endurance until 2008, a Class 1a1 icebreaker with two Lynx helicopters that enabled BAS staff to reach remote field sites that the five BAS aircraft cannot access. She was built by Ulstein-Hatlo in 1990 as the commercial ship Polar Circle and was chartered by the royal Navy in 1991 and purchased in October 1992. She in turn had replaced the former Lauritzen ship Anita Dan completed in 1956 and which became HMS Endurance in 1967 and was in service for the next 22 years until she struck an iceberg in 1989, returning home on the deck of a semi-submersible heavy lift ship. Similarly, in 2008 a catastrophic accident left her replacement HMS Endurance badly damaged, with a further replacement only procured three years later. This ship, the new HMS Protector, first deployed to the Antarctic on 29th November 2011. in addition to security issues, the missions of these three royal Navy vessels has been, and continues to be, to support the work of the British Antarctic Survey. in conclusion, the very important British Antarctic Survey research programme is well served today with three excellent and well equipped ships for the foreseeable future.