Ice boat sinks at sea
An attempt by television presenters to test a Second World War plan to create ships from ice came to an abrupt end when their ship melted and sank.
The boat took three weeks to freeze in one of the UK's largest ice warehouses, in Tilbury, Essex, before it was ready for launch in Gosport, Hants Photo: SOLENT
The project, for the BBC science show Bang Goes The Theory, was meant to test a concept that warsjipsships could be made from water frozen in moulds.
In the event of steel stocks running out in the 1940s, Geoffrey Pyke, an inventor, suggested that it was possible to make an unsinkable aircraft carrier using a material called pykrete, made of ice and wood pulp.
The mixture could be moulded into any shape and, with a slow melting rate, it was thought perfect for seafaring vessels, he claimed.
The BBC decided to put Pyke's theory to the test by mixing 5,000 litres of water with the hefty material hemp and freezing it in a 20 feet-long boat-shaped mould.
It took three weeks to freeze it in one of the UK's largest ice warehouses, in Tilbury, Essex, before it was ready for launch in Gosport, Hants.
The plan was to sail the boat, complete with outboard, to Cowes in the Isle of Wight with the show's presenters, Jem Stansfield, Liz Bonnin, Dallas Campbell and Dr Yan Wong, on board.
The team made it in to Portsmouth Harbour where they were saluted by members of the Royal Navy stationed on destroyer HMS Diamond.
But shortly after that, after just over an hour in the water, it began to take on water and capsized.
All four presenters had to be rescued from the water and the boat, which seemed to quickly melt beyond recognition in no time at all, had to be towed to shore.
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