Fife and Scotland - the offbeat perspective

Although the City of Dundee has many exhibits of great interest, these two visitor centres lie so close to one another that it makes sense to group them together and where one parking fee is sufficient to visit both following a short walk.

Traditionally, Dundee has been reknowned as a production centre of jute, jam and journalism. Jute was made here in huge quantities at one time but little remains of that industry today. The "jam" association refers to marmalade, allegedly invented in the city by Janet Keiller in 1797 but in truth it already existed for nearly three hundred years elsewhere. The "Journalism" reference remains true today and is home to a number of newspapers and comics; the Beano and Dandy remaining as firm favourites among children.

RRS Discovery

The RRS Discovery was the last wooden three-masted ship to be built in Britain and designed for Antarctic research.

She was built by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company and was launched on 21st March 1901.

Her first mission was the British National Antarctic Expedition, carrying Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first, successful journey to the Antarctic, and subsequently referred to as the Discovery Expedition.

In more recent times, the ship has been returned to the place if its birth and where the modern Discovery Point expedition centre has become one of the most popular permanent exhibitions in Scotland.

HMS Unicorn

HMS Unicorn and her sister ship, HMS Trincomalee, are surviving sailing frigates of the successful Leda class. Unicorn is now a museum ship in Dundee and located close to the 'Discovery Point' museum site described onthis page.

HMS Unicorn was built in peacetime at Chatham Dockyard and launched in 1824. A superstructure was built over her main deck and she was laid up "in ordinary", serving as a hulk and a depot ship for most of the next 140 years. Her lack of active duty left her timbers well preserved, and in the 1960s steps were initiated to convert her to a museum ship. She remains as the singular example of a wooden frigate of her type existing 'in ordinary,' and preserved to a very high standard.

HMS Unicorn was never fitted with masts and her only seafaring voyage was the one in which she was towed from Chatham to Dundee.

Discovery had coal-fired steam engines but was compelled to use sail for much of the time because the coal bunkers did not have sufficient capacity to take the ship on long voyages. She was rigged as a barque but tended to roll badly in open seas on account of the flat shallow hull and minimal extensions and so she would perform well when pushing through ice.

The iron covered bows were angled so when ramming ice, the forward part of the hull would rise and exert ever greater weight upon the ice; a principle still employed by ice breaker ships today. The propeller and rudder could be raised in times when ice threatened to enclose the vessel and the thick wooden hull was designed to withstand the high pressures of being frozen in ice. Her first captain was Robert Falcon Scott, later known as 'Scott of the Antarctic'.

Today, the RRS Discovery lies in 'dry dock' and is clearly visible while crossing the Tay Bridges from Fife and into the City of Dundee. The modern exhibit, built around the dock is known as 'Discovery Point' and is arguably one the finest in Scotland including a cinema cum 3D effects stage. The latter part of the exhibit is thus quite surprising and it would be wrong to spoil the surprise by saying more about it on this page. So we won't!

Simply standing on the decks of this magnificent vessel and seeing how such courageous explorers of the period bathed in a large wooden barrel filled with icy seawater is enough to send shivers down the spine! We rank this as a five star exhibit worthy of visit and family friendly.

It's important to mention the difference between the successful Discovery missions and the later and ill-fated Terra Nova expedition in which the historic race to the South Pole was ultimately won by the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen. Amundsen became the first man to visit both the North Pole and it's Southern counterpart. He disappeared and presumably died during a rescue mission in 1928.

Scott and his companions died during the race towards the South Pole and possibly because they chose use of new technologies rather than the proven sleds hauled by dogs. Ultimately, when supplies ran low, they could not eat and digest machines! In the final hours of their lives, Scott's expedition party had no food to eat and were trapped in their tent by a howling gale preventing further progress. Scott wrote eleven letters, one of which was addressed to J M Barry, the noted author, playright and creator of 'Peter Pan and where further information about J M Barry is included in this web site.

Looking back and in comparison with the Amundsen expedition; the Scott expedition might have survived if they had used similar and proven tactics. At worst, they might have killed a few dogs and eaten their flesh. It was a lesson that Ernest Shackleton, a member of the Discovery crew, and ultimately leader of a future doomed expedition, had learned and where he led his crew across many frozen sea miles to survival.

Credits:
All photographs and text by Alandon.