RRS Discovery is a barque-rigged auxiliary steamship built in Dundee, Scotland, for Antarctic research. Launched in 1901, she was the last traditional wooden three-masted ship to be built in the United Kingdom. Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, and highly successful, journey to the Antarctic, known as the Discovery Expedition.
After service as a merchant ship before and during the First World War, Discovery was taken into the service of the British government in 1923 to carry out scientific research in the Southern Ocean, becoming the first Royal Research Ship. The ship undertook a two-year expedition – the Discovery Investigations – recording valuable information on the oceans, marine life and being the first scientific investigation into whale populations. From 1929 to 1931 Discovery served as the base for the British Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (BANZARE) under Douglas Mawson. This was a major scientific and territorial quest in what is now the Australian Antarctic Territory.
On her return from the BANZARE, Discovery was moored in London as a static training ship and visitor attraction until 1979. That year she was placed in the care of the Maritime Trust as a museum ship. In 1986 she was moved to Dundee, the city where she was built. After an extensive restoration, Discovery is now the centrepiece of a visitor attraction in the city. She is one of only two surviving expedition ships from the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, the other being the Norwegian ship Fram. The , which survives and sailed in the Antarctic in 1903, is excluded from this group, as it was not built specifically for Antarctic Exploration.
Design and construction With increasing scientific and political attention being turned to the uncharted continent of Antarctica during the late 19th century, numerous proposals arose for a British-mounted expedition to the continent. The Royal Navy had been something of a pioneer with Antarctic exploration, mounting the Ross expedition in 1839 which discovered the Ross Ice Shelf. Attention had turned northward to the Arctic and attempts to reach the North Pole. The RN mounted the British Arctic Expedition in 1874.
Towards the turn of the century, there was increasing pressure for a similar expedition to the southern polar region. The British government and the Admiralty stopped short of organising a government expedition but agreed to partially fund a project led by the two main interested scientific organisations, the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Society. The Admiralty would provide practical support in designing and crewing a purpose-built ship for the expedition, while the ship would be owned by the RGS.
Early discussions on building a dedicated polar exploration ship considered replicating Fridtjof Nansen's ship Fram, but that vessel was designed specifically for working through the pack ice of the Arctic. 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 W.E. Smith, one of the senior naval architects at the Admiralty. The ship's engine, boilers and other machinery were designed by Fleet Engineer Philip Marrack.
Smith borrowed many elements of his design from the Bloodhound, a Dundee-built whaling ship taken into Royal Navy service as HMS Discovery for the Arctic Expedition. By 1900 few shipyards in the United Kingdom had the capability to build wooden ships of the size needed – only two shipbuilders submitted bids for the contract. The designers deemed it essential that the ship be made from wood, both for strength and ease of repair, and to reduce magnetic interference from a steel hull. They wanted to gain the most accurate navigation and surveying.
The main compass was mounted perfectly amidships, and there were to be no steel or iron fittings within of this point. The original cushions for the wardroom (just aft and below the main bridge) were changed when it was found they included steel-backed buttons. Similarly some of the wardroom cabins fell within this area, and their occupants had to sleep on mattresses stuffed with horsehair. Others located at a distance had more modern types of mattresses with steel springs inside. For the same reason of navigation, the boilers and engine were mounted towards the stern of the ship, a feature which also provided maximum space for equipment and provisions. A special laboratory for taking magnetic field measurements was provided below the bridge.
The ship committee considered having the ship built in Norway by Framnæs, the yard which would later build . But supporters believed that the British government's money should be spent at a British yard. The new 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 by Scott for his last expedition, in 1884. The committee responsible for the ship's construction offered a separate tender for her boilers, engine and auxiliary machinery in an effort to reduce costs. Dundee Shipbuilders also won that order, but sub-contracted the work to Gourlay Brothers, another Dundee engineering firm.
The ship cost £34,050 to build, plus another £10,322 to be fitted with engines and machinery, and more than £6000 for other equipment and fittings. The total cost for the Discovery was £51,000, equivalent to £4.1m in modern currency. Much of the detail work of fitting out the ship's interior spaces, scientific equipment and provisions was overseen directly by Scott and the ship's newly appointed engineer Reginald Skelton.
Discovery was fitted with a 450-horsepower coal-fired triple expansion steam engine, but had to rely primarily on sail because the coal bunkers did not have sufficient capacity to take the ship on long voyages. At her economical cruising speed of , Discovery carried enough coal for only of steaming; the voyage to New Zealand covered over . At , she could steam only .
The ship was considered to be a sailing vessel with auxiliary steam propulsion: when first registered in 1900 Discovery was classified as a sailing ship. Her legal owners were the Royal Geographical Society. As its president, Sir Clements Markham, was a member of the Royal Harwich Yacht Club, Discovery was registered as a private sailing yacht of the RHYC. She carried the official name and prefix 'S.Y. Discovery'. She flew the RHYC's burgee, the emblem of the RGS as a house flag, and the Blue Ensign throughout her first expedition.
She was rigged as a barque (the fore- and mainmasts being square rig and the mizzen mast carrying a fore-aft sail), and the total maximum sail area was . Following the practice of the most modern sailing ships of the time, the windjammers, she carried split topsails to reduce the size of the deck crew needed to handle them. Her spars and sails on the foremast and mainmast were identical to reduce the amount of spares carried and allow easier repairs.
The ship was rigged to carry several large staysails. The funnel was hinged at the base so it could be laid on the deck when the mizzen staysail was rigged once at sea. The Discovery was marginally faster under sail than she was under engine power – her record for distance travelled in 24 hours is , equivalent to .
The ship has a massively built wooden hull designed to withstand being frozen into pack ice and resist crushing. At the time of her launch, Discovery was widely held to be the strongest wooden ship ever built. The hull frames, placed much closer together than was normal, were made of solid sections of oak up to thick. The outer hull was formed from two layers – one thick and an outer skin some thick.
A third lining was laid inside the frames, forming a double bottom and skin around almost the entire hull. This meant that in places the hull was over thick, providing not only formidable strength but excellent insulation against the cold. The construction made it impossible to install portholes (and fitting them would have weakened the hull), so the crew relied on 'mushroom vents' on the deck to allow air and light into the interior.
The wood used for the planking varied depending on where in the ship it was laid and what structural purpose it served: the inner layer is Scots pine while the skin is made of pitch pine, Honduras mahogany or oak. The outer hull is made of English elm and Greenheart. Oak beams run across the hull forming three decks – the lower deck beams are square in cross-section and are placed less than apart along the ship's length. Seven transverse bulkheads, also of wood, provide additional strength and ensured that any ice damage would not flood the entire ship.
To prevent damage from ice floes or crushing, the two-blade propeller could be hoisted out of the way and the rudder could be easily detached and stored aboard. A second rudder and spare propeller blades were carried, and the ship could be steered by use of her sails if her rudder or steering gear was completely disabled. Iron-shod bows were severely raked so that when ramming the ice, they would ride up over the margin and crush the ice with deadweight.
The coal bunkers on each side contained a steel compartment, each of which could hold 60 tons of fresh water. These would be filled on the long ocean trip to and from New Zealand but for the Antarctic expedition the extra coal capacity was more important as ice and snow could be melted each day to provide water, so the tanks would be filled with coal. The metal tanks also contributed to the strength of the lower hull around the boiler and engine spaces.
On 16 March 1900, in the context of significant donations to the approaching expedition by patrons Llewellyn W. Longstaff and the British Government, construction on the Discovery began in Dundee, Scotland, by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company. She was launched into the Firth of Tay on 21 March 1901 by Lady Markham, the wife of Sir Clements Markham, President of the Royal Geographical Society.
History
British National Antarctic Expedition
The British National Antarctic Expedition departed the UK less than five months after the Discovery was launched and only a week after the ship left Dundee. With limited time between the ship's launch and her departure for Antarctica there was limited time for sea trials. Her speed under steam was tested and proved better than expected – her averaged maximum speed during trials was 9 knots instead of the planned 8 knots. Without a full crew available and short of time neither her builders nor Scott were able to test her performance or handling under sail.
Much of her equipment was also untested, so the long voyage to New Zealand, made via Madeira and Cape Town, would also be the new vessel's shakedown cruise. Before reaching London from Dundee a leak was found from her stern around the rudder post. There was no time to dry dock the ship for a full repair, with Skelton having to make do with applying extra caulking.
The ship was berthed in London loading supplies and equipment until July 1901, when she sailed to Cowes on the Isle of Wight where she anchored during August. In this time she served as the yacht of the RGS during Cowes Week and was toured by several dignitaries, culminating in a visit by King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra on 5 August. The expedition left from Cowes the next day, 6 August 1901.