Page 53: of Marine Technology Magazine (April 2016)

(Image: Cammell Laird)

Photo: Dr. Bill Koski (LGL Limited)

AZFP for Zooplankton

Rendering of the new polar research vessel to be built by research in Pangnirtung Fiord Cammell Laird

Sarah Fortune, PhD candidate at the

University of British Columbia and guest student at Woods Hole Oceano- graphic Institution in collaboration

RRS Boaty McBoatface: Really?

with Dr. Steve Ferguson from Fisheries and Oceans Canada and University of

By Eric Haun

Manitoba as well as LGL Limited and

VDOS Global LLC, conducted several

RRS Shackleton, RRS Endeavour, RRS Falcon, RRS Fish ‘N’ Chips and RRS days of zooplankton backscatter obser-

Kanye are just a few of the suggestions submitted in an open campaign to name vations in Pangnirtung Fiord with co- the U.K.’s next state-of-the-art polar research vessel. But leading the vote is a located Optical Plankton Counter data. name that’s even more out of the ordinary: RRS Boaty McBoatface.

The four-frequency (125, 200, 455 and

The U.K.’s Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) last week issued 769 kHz) AZFP with cage and ? oatation a call for the public to recommend names for the country’s new £200 million from ASL’s lease pool was shipped to polar research ship. “We would like the name to be inspirational and about rendezvous with the Arctic equipment. environmental and polar science, to help us tell everyone about the amazing

The instrument was deployed in Pang- work the ship does,” the NERC said in a press release announcing the naming nirtung Fiord in the Canadian territory campaign.

of Nunavut and ? oated at the surface off

Though Boaty McBoatface doesn’t come anywhere near ? tting those guide- a small locally contracted vessel (Peter’s lines, it is perfectly apt for another of the NERC’s criterion: “We don’t want it

Expediting & Out? tting). Unfortunate- to be a name we have already used for one of our science ships.” ly, extreme and unusual ice conditions

The naming contest has drawn a great deal of attention from the Internet, (the presence of thick, multi-year ice) causing the voting site to encounter “technical issues” due to “overwhelming prevented deployment in Cumberland interest,” NERC said. Yet votes have poured in by the thousands, with Boaty

Sound where she conducts most of her

McBoatface pulling far ahead with more than 33,600 votes. In second place,

PhD research near bowhead whales.

with more than 3,000 votes, is RRS Henry Worsley, honoring the British ex-

Fortune was encouraged by the collected plorer who died attempting the ? rst unaided solo crossing of the Antarctic data because it demonstrates the poten- earlier this year. Other top vote getters, still many thousands of votes behind tial to record rapid and ? ne-scale zoo-

Boaty McBoatface, include RRS Usain Boat, RRS Thanks for All the Fish, plankton data in a way that she couldn’t

RRS It’s Bloody Cold Here and the ingenious RRS Boat. However, despite the before. She expects that it will be par- public’s rallying for Boaty McBoatface, the vessel’s name will ultimately be ticularly interesting to compare the OPC chosen by a NERC panel.

and AZFP data. Fortune anticipates con-

The new vessel will become one of the world’s most technologically ad- ducting ? eld research during the sum- vanced when it sets sail in 2019. To be built by Northwest England’s famed mer of 2016 in Cumberland Sound and

Cammell Laird shipyard, the vessel will replace RRS Ernest Shackleton and she hopes to redeploy the AZFP close to

RRS James Clark Ross to aid extended scienti? c research missions in both bowhead whales to study their feeding

Antarctica and the Arctic.

behavior.

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