New Antarctic patrol ship announced

THERE’LL be a new Protector of the frozen continent this winter as the Navy tries out a possible replacement for HMS Endurance.

HMS Protector – upholding the famous name of the 1950s and 60s Antarctic survey vessel – is being loaned on a three-year trial with the Fleet while the long-term future of the Red Plum is considered.

Since Endurance almost foundered off Chile during a flooding accident in late 2008, HMS Scott has been filling in as ice patrol ship. Her hull is not as strong as Endurance’s – nor does Scott possess a flight deck.

Whitehall wants to continue the Senior Service’s Antarctic mission – updating charts, supporting the British Antarctic Survey, monitoring wildlife and maintaining Britain’s presence in the South Atlantic.

The vessel it has plumped for is the Norwegian icebreaker MV Polarbjørn – Polar Bear – is a commercial icebreaker normally based in Bergen, but which has been operating most recently in the Caribbean.

Defence Minister Lord Astor said that Polarbjørn – to be renamed HMS Protector – would “provide the interim replacement ice patrol ship capability for at least the next three years while we consider the long-term future of HMS Endurance.”

The Red Plum was brought back to Portsmouth on a transporter vessel and remains in the naval base awaiting her fate.

Lord Astor said the Navy had still to decide whether the ice patrol ship’s mission could best be performed in the long term by a repaired Endurance – or whether she should be replaced.

Her interim replacement is a commercial icebreaker normally based in Bergen, but which has been operating most recently in the Caribbean.

Completed in 2001 and displacing 4,985 tons, she can act as a polar research ship or subsea support vessel, and has 100 berths.

She is around 1,000 tons smaller than Endurance but, unlike the current stand-in HMS Scott, she has a flight deck – though as that currently sits atop the bridge roof there may be a need to modify the ship’s configuration for Royal Navy operations in the far south.

Polarbjørn is expected in Portsmouth in May to be fitted with specialist military equipment required for her deployments.

Her owner, GC Rieber, also owns the scientific support ship RRS Ernest Shackleton, currently chartered to the British Antarctic Survey.

As for the ship’s new name, it is taken from the sixth HMS Protector which completed 13 Antarctic ‘seasons’ between 1955 and 1968.

She was launched in 1936 as a netlayer, seeing service in the North Sea, Atlantic and Mediterranean in World War 2 before being badly damaged by an aerial torpedo and undergoing major repairs in Bombay.

Protector was placed in reserve, but converted to take up duties as ice patrol ship in the early 1950s.

She was paid off in May 1968 to be replaced by HMS Endurance (the current Endurance’s predecessor), and finally scrapped in Scotland in 1970.