Wednesday, September 8th 2010 - 23:25 UTC

HMS Endurance to be replaced with vessel from Norway early 2011

Senior Royal Navy sources have confirmed a vessel from Norway will join the fleet early next year to replace Endurance, which almost sank in 2008, reports The News from Portsmouth.

To repair the Red Plum that almost sunk in 2008 would have cost £ 30 million

The Norwegian icebreaker will join the fleet early next year and head off on an 18-month deployment in March, a senior source revealed. It is unclear whether the RN will buy or lease the replacement icebreaker, which may be given the name Endurance.

The Royal Navy maintains its official line that a decision is yet to be taken on whether to repair or replace the ship. But The News understands Endurance's replacement will be ratified at a meeting of navy top brass next week.

Mike Hancock, MP for Portsmouth South and a member of the parliamentary defence select committee, said: 'I'm not surprised the navy has gone for this option. They had three choices: scrap Endurance and forget about heading to the Antarctic; spend millions getting her in to good shape, or bring something in - and that's what they'll do. It seems the most logical step.'

HMS Endurance has sat idle at Portsmouth naval base ever since she was carried back home on a transport ship from the Falkland Islands in April 2009.

She almost sank in the Strait of Magellan, off the coast of Chile, in December 2008. A 15-month investigation into the flood revealed it was caused by a valve opening as crew made a routine filter change.

The navy originally said it intended to repair Endurance. But Whitehall has stalled on handing over the cash to fund the repairs, which would keep her out of action until 2011, by which time she would be 20 years old.

In Endurance's absence, the navy deployed the ocean survey vessel HMS Scott to the South Atlantic and Antarctic as cover. But Scott does not have an icebreaker function, nor does she have the Lynx helicopters of Endurance.

A RN spokesman said: 'No decision on the way ahead has yet been taken'.

 

Published in: Environment, Politics, Antarctica, Falkland Islands.
Tags: HMS Endurance.

4 comments Feed

Note: Comments do not reflect MercoPress’ opinions. They are the personal view of our users. We wish to keep this as open and unregulated as possible. However, rude or foul language, discriminative comments (based on ethnicity, religion, gender, nationality, sexual orientation or the sort), spamming or any other offensive or inappropriate behaviour will not be tolerated. Please report any inadequate posts to the editor. Comments must be in English. Thank you.

1 stick up your junta (#) Sep 09th, 2010 - 06:29 am Report abuse
Leason learnt, sending out the correct signals to the covetous
2 avargas2001 (#) Sep 10th, 2010 - 06:18 pm
Comment removed by the editor.
3 Zethee (#) Sep 10th, 2010 - 07:19 pm Report abuse
If you had bothered to read the message and got over yourself you would have realised that it's sitting in port.
4 Rufus (#) Sep 12th, 2010 - 02:51 am Report abuse
Seems sensile to buy in from Scandanavia, after all they do have much more practical experience of building and running icereakers than the UK does.
I think both the current and previous red plums were built in Scandanavia (Norway and Denmark respectively) before being modified in the UK

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