Polar research and supply vessel capabilities – An exploratory study

Abstract

Many countries engaged in polar research are commissioning polar research and supply vessels (PRSVs), inter alia, Britain's RRS Sir David Attenborough and Australia's RSV Nuyina. The prevalent climate change has placed the Arctic and Antarctic regions in the forefront of operations requiring specialist ships to support and deploy research activities. This study focuses on PRSVs and examines potential means of assessing their capabilities by identifying and gathering sources of information into a database. Further, this study presents established models of ship performance assessment in the academic literature. Links are drawn between these models, PRSV characteristics and the need for scientific capabilities and transport logistics in polar science. An adapted model is then applied to the data collected, enabling the assessment of PRSV capabilities. The assessment is based on the following key characteristics: (1) icebreaking, (2) logistics, (3) science and (4) ship size, each using attributes from the database to provide a normalised score. Data pertaining to five PRSVs are examined and the results are depicted as a radar diagram. The results show the general applicability of the model.