By no stretch is the Scott Expedition Museum and Discovery centre is a military museum, but it is a great maritime museum worthy of a post. My wife and I visited Dundee in Scotland in 2015 and made a special detour to view the museum and the Royal Yacht Britannia, which is moored nearby.
The museum is housed in an interesting octagonal building that seems like a cross between a Central Asian mosque and a Victorian era glasshouse. The museum has an excellent display covering the era of British Antarctic exploration, cover the Scott and Shackleton expeditions and even a small section on the Australian Mawson expeditions in the 1920s (at least in 2015 when we visited). https://www.dundeeheritagetrust.co.uk/attraction/discovery-point/
The Discovery was laid down in Dundee in 1900 to a special contract for polar exploration. To avoid interference with the magnetic instruments that were required to map the magnetic pole, the ship needed to be built almost entirely of wood. This was unusual as even wooden ships of the period contained a significant amount of steel for brackets, joists, bolts and fittings. The wooden hull was built extremely thick to enable the ship to ride out being frozen in pack ice. It was also felt that the near total use of wood would make any damage easy to repair.
The ship was completed only a few months before the Scott Expedition set out for Antarctica in 1901 and did not have time for a shakedown cruise. The Discovery's triple expansion steam engine proved to be underpowered, giving the ship a maximum speed of only 8 knots. An interesting feature of the engine was the ability to disconnect the propellor and haul it inside the hull to protect it from ice damage.
The Discovery arrived in Antarctica in early 1902 and the expedition was set ashore in McMurdo Bay. The ship was frozen into the ice by March 1902 and would remain trapped there for the next two years. Many attempts were made to free the ship during the summer months with dynamite and sawing through the ice sheets, but they all proved unsuccessful. A relief expedition was sent from New Zealand with the ships Terra Nova and Morning arrived in 1904 with instructions to attempt a rescue, abandoning the Discovery to its fate if necessary. Fortunately, after months of effort the ship was freed and made its way back to New Zealand. Captain Scott stayed behind and made his fatal attempt to reach the South Pole, while his ship made its way back to Dundee.
Discovery's owners (who had leased the ship to the expedition) had gone into receivership and in 1905 sold the ship for the budget price of 10,000 pounds to the Hudson Bay Company in Canada as a cargo transport. Although she was in rather poor condition after her Antarctic experience she would perform this task until the start of the Great War (1914-1918), when she was used to ship supplies to Russia. In 1916 the British government leased her for the rescue of Ernest Shackleton's failed Endurance expedition. However, Discovery was so worn out and slow that by the time she reached the South Atlantic, Shackleton had already reached South Georgia and organised their own rescue. She returned to Britain with a cargo of grain and continued in service as a transport for the remainder of the war and afterwards as a transport for the Russian intervention.
In the mid-1920s Discovery was taken over by the Colonial Office who refitted her as a research vessel. Many improvements to her rig, engines and equipment were made and she returned to the Falklands and the Southern Ocean as a survey vessel. In 1929 the Discovery was taken over by the Australian Government to continue her work as an Antarctic exploration vessel. She would transport several expeditions to Antarctica under Sir Douglas Mawson until she was returned to Britain in 1931.
The Discovery was laid up in London on the Thames as an accommodation ship, a sea cadets training ship and later a museum ship until in 1986 she was moved back to her original port of Dundee, where she has remained ever since.
The Discovery sits in its own dry-dock
Of course, the weather was rather horrible when we visited (the same weather followed us through all our museum ship visits, including HMS Warrior and HMS Gannet). All the outside photos turned out rather disappointing.
The ship would have carried a small stock of sheep, pigs and chickens to provide fresh meat for at least the early part of the voyage.
Did I say it was wet?
The funnel
One of the problems with the ship's operation was that the conning station was behind the foremast, but the wheel was placed at the very stern of the ship. This made communication and control very difficult.
To rectify this, in 1923 the wheel was moved up to the conning station.
Under the boat deck
The interior exhibits are very good and illustrate life on board. There are plenty of horrible jobs onboard ship, but being a stoker was certainly up (down) there.
Boiler
As mentioned, the hull was extremely thick, built up of many layers of oak and other timbers.
The chandlers office
Crew quarters. As usual, the crew lived in rather cramped, communal conditions.
Officers had a little more room and privacy
The captains cabin
Another officers cabin.
Research station. Actually, the Discovery was well furnished with rooms and interior spaces, which made her an excellent 'command' ship for the expedition, especially when trapped in the ice for two years. Not all the crew would have stayed onboard during this time. A shore base was constructed out of a prefabricated kit the ship carried. From there they explored the coasts and made the dash to the pole.
Officers mess.
No Shelly, you cannot take the penguin home!
The Research ship Discovery can be found:
Discovery Point, Discovery Quay, Dundee, DD1 4XA
https://www.dundeeheritagetrust.co.uk/attraction/discovery-point/
