It's official: the winning name for the NERC research vessel is...

[DavidB-AU]

Boaty McBoatface! The internet has spoken. 
 
http://www.sciencealert.com/it-s-official-boaty-mcboatface-is-the-winning-name-for-this-300-million-research-vessel
 
The final tally:
RRS Boaty McBoatface – 124,109
RRS Poppy-Mai – 34,371
RRS Henry Worsley – 15,231
RRS It's bloody cold here – 10,679
RRS David Attenborough – 10,248
RRS Usain Boat – 8,710
RRS Boatimus Prime – 8,365
RRS Katherine Giles – 7,567
RRS Catalina de Aragon – 6,826
RRS I like big boats & I cannot lie – 6,452
RRS Pillar of Autumn – 5,823
RRS What iceberg? – 5,250
RRS Boaty McBoatface the Return – 4,730
RRS Boat – 4,507
RRS Pingu – 4,343
RRS Poppy-Mai – Warrior Princess – 4,287
RRS Thanks for all the fish – 4,236
RRS Big metal floaty thingy-thing – 3,909
RRS Ice Ice Baby – 3,673
RRS Boatasaurus Rex – 3,371

[Oldddudders]

I note the name came from a BBC Radio presenter. I think if I found I was employing someone who could invent a name like that, I'd worry.

[Chameleon]

I'd put him in charge of comedy, myself.

[Robert]

I notice that apart from one or two suggestions, none of the names are particularly serious.  Which probably places in question whether an Internet vote was such a good idea.

 

Does anybody happen to know the origin of "Boaty McBoatface"?

[DavidB-AU]

I note the name came from a BBC Radio presenter.

Former BBC Radio presenter James Hand.

 

It's not without precedent for an internet vote to go in unexpected ways. When Greenpeace did it for the name of a whale, the winning name was Mister Splashy Pants.

 

Cheers

David

[The Stationmaster]

Well apart from anything else what this 'vote' has proved is that banality and plain stupidity is alive and well and living on the internet - although that hardly needed to be proved.

[andania 213]

" A Maritime nation the British, and proud of it", says Raymond Baxter on the introduction to the BTF Film, 'Take your car on Holiday'

 

But that was 1967.....

 

signed,

A very unimpressed former Ship's Agent

 

ps, I truly hope they choose David Attenborough as the vessel's name    

[Robert]

Former BBC Radio presenter James Hand.

 

Thanks - I misunderstood the post.  I didn't realise he had made up the name.

[Oldddudders]

All logic says that this important vessel deserves no less than a decent and stirring name if it, and its research, are to be taken seriously by the public. Few on that list pass muster.

[Dunsignalling]

I'd put him in charge of comedy, myself.

I wouldn't !

[Horsetan]

.....question whether an Internet vote was such a good idea.

 

It is never a good idea.

[Joseph_Pestell]

It is never a good idea.

Not even on an RMWeb wishlist???

[Horsetan]

Not even on an RMWeb wishlist???

 

Especially not a RMWeb wishlist. That's just asking for trouble 

[ColinK]

....or someone might suggest Titanic 2.

[The Stationmaster]

....or someone might suggest Titanic 2.

 

They already have (read the two links in the order I have pasted them ).

 

http://www.titanic2ship.com

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titanic_II

[Horsetan]

....or someone might suggest Titanic 2.

 

...or possibly "The Mary Rose II"?

[Revolution Mike]

NERC have retained the right to pick the name.  Hopefully it will be RRS Henry Worsley (or David Attenborough).

 

Cheers, Mike

[pointstaken]

No - the name should be "RRS Arctic Elizabeth "

 

Dennis

[eastwestdivide]

To be fair to the originator of the winning name, he wasn't the first to make a silly suggestion, just jumped onto the bandwagon:

 

I read the story about naming the ship on the BBC website on Thursday and some of the entries were really funny - my favourite was Clifford The Big Red Boat.

I thought I would throw one into the ring. By Friday night it was leading by a couple of thousand, and when the site crashed on Sunday it was leading by 8,000

 

and he since apologised for the suggestion:

 

 

"I've apologised profusely to the people behind the website," the former Good Morning Jersey host said.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-jersey-35860760

[MJI]

I think Henry Worsley as well.

 

David Attenborough can go on the next one

[jonny777]

The problem they have is that the second placed name Poppy-Mai is for Poppy-Mai Barnard who was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumour in March and given only two days to live; although she has survived four weeks since the diagnosis.

[Fenman]

NERC have retained the right to pick the name. ...

And there might just be the reason why most of the public has treated this exercise with the contempt it deserves.

 

Of course NERC will pick the name they were always going to. So why bother with this pointless exercise in faux engagement?

 

Personally I like the idea of honouring Attenborough who has probably done more to popularise natural sciences in the UK than anyone else. My guess is it will be named after someone the public has never heard of and about whom they care even less.

 

Paul

[Revolution Ben]

Hello all,

 

If nothing else the Boaty McBoatface saga has generated an enormous amount of interest and publicity for a scientific research vessel that I suspect most members of the public would otherwise have remained blissfully ignorant of.

 

Surely the win would be to name the ship sensibly - my own preference would be David Attenborough, who's not only an inspirational but also very pleasant man - and then maybe, as a nod to the whole exercise, name the lifeboat or one of the research submersibles B-McB or something equally humorous.

 

Cheers

 

Ben A.

[jjb1970]

I'll state a sort of vested interest here in that I sailed on the RRS Bransfield and RRS James Clark Ross as an engineer when I worked for British Antarctic Survey. So I probably have a heightened interest in this saga compared to most.

My belief is that NERC observe the historical convention of BAS and go with a British Antarctic explorer (noting that political changes mean that British can be a rather flexible term when looking back in history). To me the fact that names like John Biscoe, James Clark Ross and Edward Bransfield are so little known is exactly why keeping them alive in the names of Royal Research Ships should be continued. With the best will in the world to David Attenborough and fully recognising that he has done a huge amount to popularise science his achievements cannot be compared to those whose names have graced previous and current BAS vessels.

[pH]

I still think it should be 'Harry McNish' (you can look him up).