Discovery Rediscovered
Borates to rescue of historic ship
December 1995

Discovery, Captain Scott’s great Antarctic exploration vessel, was built in 1901 to withstand the most extreme natural conditions. Enormous strength was provided by oak timbers 19 inches square and by a hull of greenheart, a tropical hardwood twice as strong as oak with outstanding natural durability. She survived three Antarctic winters heroically, including two whole years locked fast in the polar ice, but years later fell victim to neglect - and to one of the milder of nature’s hazards, gentle, English rain.

Fresh water, penetrating into the interior of a ship, provides the ideal conditions for decay fungi which will insidiously destroy the timber. In time, wet rot did more harm to Discovery than anything the Antarctic elements ever threw at her. And by cruel irony some of the repairs and refitting which were attempted, actually introduced new decay fungi into the bow timbers. Oak used to replace decaying timbers in the 1920s proved itself to have been infected by Laetiporus sulphureus, which had attacked the standing trees. This fungus has proved to be a major source of decay in large dimensional oak, and has often been associated with decay in wooden ships.

It seemed that Discovery must be nearing the end of her voyage through the century when she was taken over from the Royal Navy by Britain’s Maritime Trust.

Yet all was not lost. Careful - borate-assisted - restoration by the Trust, and later by Dundee Heritage, has stopped the rot. Scott’s ship is now beginning a new career.

In fact, the ship is huge (1,000 tons), and repair work and treatment will have to continue for a number of years in Dundee, the Scottish port where she was originally built. Over the past six years many parts of the hull have been treated with disodium octaborate tetrahydrate (which the Maritime Trust has used as a matter of course over recent years on several of its ships). This has been in the nature of a holding operation to prevent further deterioration while the long task of curing saveable - and replacing unsaveable - timber proceeds.

The bow was the worst infected part of the vessel. It has recently been the focus of a rescue operation in which the Maritime Trust’s experts were supported by the timber technology research department of Imperial College (London University), Dundee Heritage, and by the Borax specialties group.

Treatment began with the construction of a massive steam box and the labyrinthine installation of steam piping throughout the bow area. When the steam was turned on, it gradually raised the temperature of the wood throughout its cross-section to achieve 70°C (158°F) even at the center of the largest pieces - to kill all decay fungi. This operation was masterminded by Malcolm Gray, former chief petty officer in the Royal Navy, now a steam engineer. Steam, however, has no lasting effect. Without further treatment, decay would probably reappear.

This is where Borax returns to the rescue act. Tim-bor® wood preservative, a form of disodium octaborate tetrahydrate which maximizes the benefits of borates in remedial treatment, was sprayed ‘from truck to keelson’* in an operation led by Dr. David Dickinson, head of timber technology at Imperial College, and Dr. Jeff Lloyd, a former graduate student of Dickinson’s, now at Borax. The second treatment is for life, says Lloyd. However much it rains in Dundee, Discovery’s bow is safe.

And Discovery’s new career? She is now a major educational and tourist attraction in the city of Dundee, both a museum of Antarctica and a living memorial to the heroes who originally manned her. Thanks to an exceptionally imaginative, multi-media presentation - which even includes a block of immemorial polar ice - the visitor can vividly re-experience the first-seen wonders and incredible hardships of Scott and his crew. Readers who visit Scotland are urged to discover Discovery for themselves.

* Old nautical expression meaning from top of mast to bottom of hull. A landlubber might say that the borate was sprayed into ‘every nook and cranny’.