More LEGO® Investigator competitions!
Posted: February 25, 2013 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project | Tags: LEGO Investigator, RV Investigator, Scientriffic, The Helix Leave a commentOur limited edition LEGO® Investigators are proving very popular!
Recently CSIRO Education ran a competition in each of their magazines, The Helix and Scientriffic, to give away two of the fabulous LEGO models.
Here are some of the very impressive entries!
The budding scientists were asked what scientific research they would investigate if they were the captain of Investigator.
Winners will be announced on 1 March for Scientriffic and 1 April for The Helix.
Is it the space shuttle taking off? No, it’s our fabulous gondola!
Posted: February 20, 2013 Filed under: Home, Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentWork on the gondola has been progressing and it’s looking rather fabulous. Here’s the latest photo from the shipyard, of RV Investigator’s gondola being turned.
It looks just like a space shuttle, taking off!
To the pinnacle of the ship – the main mast!
Posted: February 18, 2013 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentAt the very pinnacle of the ship is the main mast, which will house a weather research radar.
You can see it highlighted here in the graphic of RV Investigator – the dome at the top indicates the radar. Work has begun on the main mast as you’ll see in the photos below.
Bacon and eggs anyone?
Posted: February 13, 2013 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentWork is continuing on the inside fit-out of RV Investigator. Here’s a photo of the galley or kitchen equipment that will be onboard.
Not quite ready for bacon and eggs but well on the way to cooking up a storm!
Big, beautiful and green!
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentA few weeks ago on this blog we showed you block 110 heading down the street to the blasting and painting chamber. Now it’s out of the paint chamber looking, big, beautiful and green!
It’s the first chance we’ve had to see the ship’s name and home port, in bold lettering on the side too.
Doesn’t the ship look amazing!



Block 201, the top layer of the bow, under construction in the fabrication shed.
Posted: February 6, 2013 Filed under: Investigator, The Future Research Vessel Project Leave a commentBlock 201, the bow of the ship at the 200 level is big. It’s so big that it won’t fit down the streets of the shipyard, so it’s being built in smaller sections.
Here is the graphic to show you which block we’re talking about, and some photos from the fabrication shed of various parts of the block.





Southern Surveyor locates resting place of WW2 shipwreck
Posted: February 5, 2013 Filed under: Marine National Facility, Media Releases, RV Southern Surveyor | Tags: Ballina, Limerick, shipwreck, Southern Surveyor, WW2 Leave a comment
THIS MEDIA RELEASE WAS ISSUED BY ROBYN PARKER MP, MINISTER FOR HERITAGE
Wreck of the Limerick sunk by the Japanese in 1943 found off Ballina
One of NSW’s wartime mysteries has at last been solved with the discovery of the wreckage of the MV Limerick off Ballina on the NSW far north coast, Heritage Minister Robyn Parker announced today.
Ms Parker said that while a lot is known about the sinking of the MV Limerick in 1943, it has taken almost 70 years and the opportunistic use of Australia’s Marine National Facility research vessel, Southern Surveyor, to identify the ship’s final location.
“Limerick was one of the largest vessels sunk by Japanese submarines off Australia’s east coast during their offensive submarine patrols through 1942 and 1943,” Ms Parker said.
“Local fishermen using modern depth sonars identified a large shipwreck in about 100 metres of water some 18 kilometres off the coast late last year.
“Following their discovery, NSW Water Police assisted the NSW Office of Environment and Heritage (OEH) in an initial survey of the deep site with a side scan sonar but due to bad weather they were unable to conclusively identify the shipwreck as being Limerick.”
OEH then approached Australia’s Marine National Facility (AMNF), which operates Australia’s ocean-going research vessel, the 66-metre Southern Surveyor.
Owned and operated by the CSIRO and funded by the Commonwealth, AMNF is a research facility which is available to all Australian scientists and their international collaborators.
“The team at AMNF were contacted by OEH and coincidentally a research voyage was already scheduled to operate in the suspected wreck area. OEH approached the lead scientist on board to see if they could assist in locating the wreck,” Ms Parker said.
The research voyage, led by University of Sydney geologist, Associate Professor Tom Hubble, left Brisbane on 18 January to conduct geological research along the continental slope and shelf between Yamba and Fraser Island.
In the lead up to identifying the Limerick, the Southern Surveyor’s research team found evidence of large submarine landslides that had the potential to generate a tsunami.
A landslide can be triggered by a moderately large and shallow earthquake measuring more than 6.5 or 7 on the Richter Magnitude Scale, an event which might happen once every 5,000-10,000 years.
“When the team at AMNF contacted me to see if we could locate the wreck from on board Southern Surveyor we were pleased to assist,” Dr Hubble said.
“Confirming the wreck as MV Limerick is in the national interest. We were already in the area, we had the necessary technology and technical expertise and in the end it didn’t take long to create a 3-D image of the wreck.
“It was amazing to see the seafloor images come to life through Southern Surveyor’s sea floor mapping technology which transformed the data into a 3-D graphic of the ship wreck”.
The Minister for the North Coast, Mr Don Page, said the New Zealand-owned Limerick was part of a coastal wartime convoy from Sydney to Brisbane when struck by a torpedo at night on ANZAC Day, sinking the next morning on 26 April 1943.
“Four other vessels in the convoy survived, including the two naval minesweeper escorts, HMAS Colac and Ballarat. Seventy survivors were pulled from the water over many hours,” Mr Page said.
“Two of Limerick’s crew were killed after jumping into the sea, including NSW resident and the ship’s third officer Mr John Edgar Willmott of Edgeroi and a New Zealand national.
“This is a reminder of the huge sacrifice paid by merchant seamen during the war on the home front keeping food, materials and supplies going.”
Ms Parker said OEH was consulting with the NSW Office of Veterans’ Affairs in order to notify next of kin.
“I would like to take this opportunity to thank the local fishermen, Forfar Petrie and Neville Poynting, for reporting this site as soon as they realised it was of possible historic value,” Ms Parker said.
“We are also grateful to Dr Hubble for offering his valuable research time in order to positively identify the wreck as the MV Limerick.”