NERC’s RRS Discovery Visits NOC Liverpool
The Natural Environment Research Council’s (NERC) new research ship the RRS Discovery berthed at the Liverpool Cruise terminal to allow NOC staff and their families to have a look at her.
The new ship is almost 100m long and cost £75 million. It is packed with state-of-the-art scientific equipment, the infrastructure needed to deploy it, and keeps 28 scientists and 24 crew comfortable at sea for up to 50 days.
She was berthed at Liverpool for three days and this allowed the staff of NOC’s Liverpool centre, based on the University of Liverpool campus, to have a look around the board and take the return passage to NOC Southampton.
Physical, biological and chemical oceanography, marine geology and geophysics, ocean engineering and atmpospheric science research can all be carried out on board, in some of the planet’s most remote ocean areas. Discovery has nearly 400m² of permanent lab space and more exacting research environments can be created in one of the specially designed 20-foot-container-labs. Discovery can hold her position in sea state 6-7 (waves up to 9m high) and winds gusting to 40 knots which is around 46mph.
Press Release, December 18, 2013
