Dundee, Scotland, UK. RRS Discovery, barque-rigged auxiliary steamship built for Antarctic research, and launched in 1901. was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain.
Early discussions on building a dedicated polar exploration ship for the British government had considered replicating Fridtjof Nansen's purpose-built ship Fram but that vessel was designed specifically for working through the pack ice of the Arctic, while the British ship would have to cross thousands of miles of open ocean before reaching the Antarctic so a more conventional design was chosen. In charge of her overall design was Smith, one of the senior naval architects at The Admiralty, while the ship's engine, boilers and other machinery were designed by Commander Phillip Marrack of the Royal Naval Engineers. The ship borrowed many aspects of her design (as well as her name) from the Bloodhound, a Dundee-built whaling ship taken into Royal Navy service as HMS Discovery in 1874 for the British Arctic Expedition to the North Pole. By 1900 few yards in the United Kingdom had the capability to build wooden ships of the size needed - only two shipbuilders submitted bids for the contract - but it was deemed essential that the ship be made from wood, both for strength and ease of repair and to reduce the magnetic interference from a steel hull that would allow the most accurate navigation and surveying. The main compass was mounted perfectly amidships and there were to be no steel or iron fittings within 30 feet ( metres) of this point. For the same reason the boiler and engines were mounted towards the stern of the ship, a feature which also provided maximum space for equipment and provisions. The ship was almost built in Norway by Framnæs, the yard which would later build the Endurance but it was thought that the British government's money should be spent at a British yard and the Discovery was built by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company, which primarily made smaller vessels such as trawlers, tugboats and steam yachts. The yard was previously owned by Alexander Stephen and Sons and had built the Terra Nova (purchased in 1910 by Scott for his last expediti
Size: 4113px × 2742px
Location: Dundee, Scotland, UK.
Photo credit: © MediaWorldImages / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
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