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Ellie Zolfagharifard
Ellie Zolfargharifard
Senior Reporter
The sovereign, the scientists and the shipbuilders
There was definite air of excitement in Southampton on Monday, as hundreds lined the streets to welcome the Queen on her visit to launch the 92,000 tonne Queen Elizabeth cruise liner.
But despite the ship’s enormous size and royal endorsement, there was something overshadowing the anticipation over Cunard’s latest vessel for researchers at the National Oceanography Centre.
‘Two years of preparation have gone into making today go smoothly,’ said project manager, Edward Cooper, as we stepped onto the Ocean Terminal. Facing us was the magnificent RRS James Cook, the world’s most advanced scientific research ship.
‘She sets off tomorrow, heading for Punta Arenas in Chile,’ he said. ‘It’s a big day, the scientists have less than 24 hours to install all their equipment and make sure it works correctly.’ And, it seemed, not even the Queen (monarch or liner) could disrupt the activity.
We climbed onboard, dodging scientists frantically running around as we made our way to the engine room. The ship was about to undertake an 8000 mile voyage from the UK to the South Atlantic, recording data on the biogeochemical properties of plankton in the Atlantic Ocean.
As we entered the lower decks, a strong smell of diesel hit us. ‘That’s three-quarters of a million pounds of fuel going in right now,’ said Cooper. A staggering amount needed to feed the 89 metre-long vessel. But the costs, said Cooper, are nothing compared to potential economic benefits of oceanographic research.
And this is an area in which the UK is a world leader. So much so that, at a time of budget cuts, the government has provided funding for the £75m replacement of the James Cook’s sister ship, the RRS Discovery. Stepping through each high-tech laboratory and through maze of computers and sensors, it is clear that the James Cook is a testament to British oceanographic research.
But the same can not be said for engineering. Owned by the UK, the James Cook was in fact built by Norwegian shipbuilder Flekkefjord Slipp and Maskinfabrikk. Similarly the Discovery replacement is being built in a Spanish shipyard, and even the ‘quintessential British’ Queen Elizabeth was built for Cunard in a shipyard in Italy.
Andrew Jeffries, a project manager for the replacement Discovery, believes that despite a strong shipbuilding heritage, the UK now lacks the experience and capacity to build commercial vessels of this size.
‘Companies have been focusing on military work and haven’t tried to win commercial projects, so some of the capability has gone. In some ways, we would have been pleased if we had gone to the UK. But it would have been interesting to see how they would cope with it.’
It seems a shame that major UK contracts are being outsourced at a time of economic downturn. Jeffries agrees; ‘My personal view is that it is not impossible that this could be reversed. Right now we just don’t have the capacity. But I think that with our expertise and knowledge, it’s entirely possible that the UK can one day get back in the game.’
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Readers' comments (22)
George Noon | 15 Oct 2010 2:50 pm
Sadly it is indicative of the way that industry has gone in the UK. It seems as if we no longer want to get our hands dirty. We need to get back to the philosophy of "Where There's Muck There's Brass". I believe that we have the talent and the skills just a lack of commitment from those who should be leading.
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Rob Williamson | 15 Oct 2010 2:52 pm
Well said.
The Queen should have refused to launch the QE. Does no-one have any loyalty?
Cunard and the government could and should have arranged for the ship to be built in the UK - the industry needs active assistance to rebuild real sources of wealth and balance-of-payments such as the shipbuilding industry.
No cruises for me!
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Cliff Johnston | 15 Oct 2010 3:10 pm
It is more than willingness to get ones hand dirty. The total business cliimate needs to change. We all are a part of this problem. We seek the lowest cost in everything we buy. We do not care from where it comes. Most of the major economies of previous decades have been seeking lowest cost by out sourcing.
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P Field | 15 Oct 2010 3:46 pm
The Queen did not launch the ship, that was done in Italy; she blessed and commissioned the ship. The UK can still be a great maritime nation without actually building ships. The only way to compete is to drastically lower costs; EU rules do not now allow us to build ships here out of loyalty. Health and safety nonsense prevent us from even breaking up ships now as seen recently in Hartlepool. Hopefully some shake-ups will occur in the pending austerity period to come.
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A W Black | 15 Oct 2010 3:58 pm
100 years ago the two largest shipbuilders in the world were *both* based in Belfast in Northern Ireland.
Alas the economics were just not sustainable.
To build ships you need a lot of steel, if there are steel mills close to where your shipyard is you can make the ships cheaper than if you had to import the steel.
If the raw materials and refining are not close to your yard, your yard will not be as cheap as some other yard where they are. No amount of desire is going to change that.
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Patrick Carnie | 15 Oct 2010 4:02 pm
We are doing something about the Marine Industries in the UK. The Trade Associations have got together with the department for Business (BIS) and set up a Marine Industries Leadership Council (see www.marineuk.com). The Council is working on a Growth Strategy. Shipbuilding needs to be competitive, but there are common issues which could make it more so, and industry should work collaboratively (and with Government) to resolve these. We've started.
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Ian H.Thain | 15 Oct 2010 4:25 pm
When BSA stopped making its very successful 125cc motorbike the Bantam, they didn't just cease production. Somebody actually took a sledge hammer to the tooling and smashed it all, ensuring that nobody would ever make another Bantam again.
I'm not one of nature's conspiracy theorists; but the decline of British manufacturing in so short a time does seem to me to have more about it than simply an inconvenient distance to transport steel. And for that matter, our steel mills didn't close because they had run out of ore or coal.
If I were a conspiracy theorist I'd say our general industrial decline since the war sometimes looks to me to have been orchestrated, or at least encouraged. Perhaps, when we are all gone, the historians may find out by whom?
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Mel Wilby | 15 Oct 2010 5:14 pm
Ian is right in 1964 the government made sure the supersonic Harrier and the TSR2 could not go into production. I was an apprentice at the time and Jigs for the P1154 which would have been a super Harrier were in the factory brand new and ready to go within days Harold Wilson had ordered their destruction. Why do politicians do it again and again. When was the last time we had a politician that had any knowledge or experience of producing anything!!! I do wish we could have politicians that are prepared to learn something from past mistakes we haven't got time for each generation to make them over and over again.
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tony smee | 15 Oct 2010 6:05 pm
I'm just working on a beautifully made gearmotor, magnetic brake, encoder on the shaft. I just admire the way it's so well made, well designed, first class engineering.
It's made by Lenze in Germany, the brake, the encoder all made in Germany. I did have a problem and I got an 892 page data sheet off their website, in English. The encoder by Baumer Thalheim, I sent an e-mail and got an answer from Germany in English (not perfect) about 10 mins later.
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Ian H.Thain | 15 Oct 2010 7:04 pm
Ah yes, I remember them well. I had colleagues who worked on the TSR2. They were absolutely gutted.
And then there was Blue Streak, the missile that should have kept Britain in the space business. Another good project cancelled by the politicians; another British potential world champion shot to pieces by our own leaders.
We live on an island. We were the first European nation ever to have a Royal Navy. We used to have a thriving deep water fishing fleet. For a thousand years we were a hardy seafaring people par excellence, and for two centuries we were the world's largest and strongest maritime power by a factor of at least two.
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