Other research vessels
UK marine scientists make use of a wide range of research vessels other than the NOC-operated RRS Discovery and RRS James Cook. NMFSS regularly support specialist scientific equipment on such vessels, which fall into three categories:
- British Antarctic Survey (BAS) vessels - also operated by NERC and specially designed for polar research;
- Barter ships - operated by international collaborators operating in locations too costly for our ships to access or which have specific equipment facilities not available on our ships; and
- Coastal research vessels - operated by other UK institutes or universities.
British Antarctic Survey (BAS)
RRS James Clark Ross
The Royal Research Ship James Clark Ross is an ice-strengthened vessel which supports Antarctic operations. She is equipped for both geophysical and biological oceanographic research studies. For more details see the BAS RRS James Clark Ross page.
RRS Ernest Shackleton
The Royal Research Ship Ernest Shackelton is an ice-strengthened vessel which is primarily equipped for logistics support of BAS Antarctic bases, and has some limited scientific research capabilities. For more details see the BAS RRS Ernest Shackleton page.
Barter research vessels
In order to minimise unproductive vessel steaming time with our ship relocating for specific cruises, NERC has a number of agreements in place with international partners for mutual access to each other’s vessels. The respective planning teams work closely together to identify future opportunities when a barter has potential to eliminate an unnecessary passage.
A recent example occurred when UK scientists were awarded funding to carry out a seismic survey on the Tonga Trench in the SW Pacific. It was immediately clear that none of NERC’s vessels were planned to work in this area in the foreseeable future. As a consequence, it was agreed to send the research cruise to sea on the German vessel, RV Sonne, which was working in the South Pacific for a year. In return, German scientists have been given time on one of the UK vessels. Since 1994 NERC has exchanged approximately 3.5 years of ship time, saving over £1 Million in fuel costs.
The barter system does not just stop at vessel time; with both highly specialised equipment and personnel also regularly exchanged. The barter system has brought many other advantages with greater communication between the members, knowledge exchange, experience and ideas which all creates improvements for the scientists and the science.
NERC works within 2 types of barter frameworks:
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Ocean Facilities Exchange Group
The Ocean Facilities Exchange Group (OFEG) is a group of countries who share ship and marine equipment to the benefit of the marine science community. Read more about the Ocean Facilities Exchange Group →
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Bilateral arrangements
NERC has individual agreements for exchanges with the:- National Science Foundation (USA) – an agreement which since mid-1980s has given NERC access to their 27 ships; Read more about the National Science Foundation →
- Marine Institute (Ireland) – access to the RV Celtic Explorer and RV Celtic Voyager; and
- CSIC-UTM (Spain) – a ground-breaking agreement which established a joint pool of geophysical equipment and shared staff.
Coastal research vessels
Not all marine research requires the might of a full-size research vessel, which would be too big and costly for coastal work. Instead, a number of UK institutes and universities operate smaller research vessels.
Typical of these is the University of Southampton’s RV Callista, which is based at NOC (see link). When students and scientists are not using it, the research vessel is also available to the public for Discover Oceanography days.
