Sponsored by
MP: Navy must come clean over future of HMS Endurance
The Royal Navy has been urged to come clean over the future of HMS Endurance as she sits idle in Portsmouth.
Today marks exactly 111 days since the stricken icebreaker was piggy-backed into the Solent on a transport ship.
The Portsmouth-based ship – nicknamed the Red Plum – nearly sank after water flooded her engine room in the South Atlantic last December.
The navy has still not said how much it paid to get her back, what she will cost to repair and who will do the work.
The News understands Endurance's repair would keep her out of service until 2011, by which time she will be 20 years old. But some fear she may never work again.
Portsmouth South MP Mike Hancock, who sits on the Commons defence committee, said: 'It is ridiculous but not surprising that the people who own this ship have been kept in the dark for so long.
'I will be asking questions about this, because four months is too long for news.
'The navy said it was its intention to repair the ship, but we should be told what they are actually going to do.'
The navy, meanwhile, has admitted for the first time that Endurance will be replaced by HMS Scott for the next working period in Antarctica.
That ship is not an icebreaker, and does not have a helicopter facility like Endurance.
A navy spokesman in Portsmouth said: 'Four-fifths of the survey work has been done and so the research teams are getting a better picture of what needs to be done.
'It has always been our intention to repair Endurance but we will wait until the survey work is finished before making an announcement.
'We wouldn't discuss the contract value because it's in commercial confidence and hasn't been agreed yet.'
HMS SCOTT
HMS Endurance is to be replaced in Antarctica by the aptly named HMS Scott, the fourth named after the explorer Captain Robert Scott, who died in 1912 on his way back from the South Pole.
HMS Scott, pictured, is an ocean survey vessel and at 13,500 tonnes, dwarfs her 4,000-tonne predecessor HMS Hecla.
She does not have an icebreaker function as Endurance does, and does not have the Lynx helicopters of Endurance. But she is a newer ship, and can survey 150 square kilometres of ocean floor every hour.
She is 131m long, and carries 63 crew including 12 officers.
>> Vote in our latest web poll.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Motors
Search for a car
Property
Search for a house
Weather for Portsmouth
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Sunny
Temperature: -5 C to 3 C
Wind Speed: 8 mph
Wind direction: East
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 2 C to 4 C
Wind Speed: 12 mph
Wind direction: North
