Pioneering Welsh research ship Prince Madog celebrates 20th anniversary
The role of a research ship that has been helping to educate and train marine scientists for the past 20 years has been celebrated by Bangor University.
The Prince Madog is the UK’s only fully seagoing research vessel that focuses on shallower coastal areas and is used to help ensure the seas around Wales are clean, safe, productive and biologically diverse.
The university works in partnership with the Welsh Government with data collected by the vessel helping to fulfil marine and fisheries evidence requirements.
Professor Paul Spencer, Pro Vice-Chancellor, said: “The Prince Madog has been an asset to Wales, the UK and internationally, both in education and research.
“The impact of School of Ocean Sciences research over decades is remarkable. It has changed science in a number of spheres, re-written textbooks and played an important role in supporting the continued sustainable development of the marine environment.
“We look forward to many more years of ground-breaking research and impact from the decks of the Prince Madog.”
Anniversary
The present Prince Madog came into service in July 2001 after the previous research ship, also called Prince Madog, was decommissioned.
The 390-tonne purpose-built vessel features state-of-the-art equipment and is designed to take up to ten scientists and 20 students.
Some of the achievements of the Prince Madog over the past two decades include finding better ways to assess the impact of trawling on seabeds and developing the use of sonar to detect shipwrecks and locate the best places to place seabed structures.
The ship takes its name from a legend that’s featured in a 15th-century poem about a Welsh explorer, Prince Madog, who was said to have discovered America.
Support our Nation today
For the price of a cup of coffee a month you can help us create an independent, not-for-profit, national news service for the people of Wales, by the people of Wales.
A proper Royal Yacht…
Named after one of our princes, not the Hanoverian interlopers.
Named after one of our imaginary princes,who is imagined by T Gwynn Jones to have been lost at sea.
Da iawn 🏴
Just goes to show that Wales is perfectly capable of doing things such as this independently of England.
Except it has consistently been a joint venture with a number of English companies such as P and O
And it is part of the wider UK higher education system.
Sorreeee!
The point I’m making Mac is that the Welsh government and Welsh universities are perfectly capable of running a research vessel such as this whilst apologists for the English so-called ‘Union’ such as yourself like to believe that the people of Wales are incapable of doing so without the ‘generosity’ and ‘kindness’ of the wonderful English. If we became independent there would be nothing to stop us from collaborating with other nations. Incidentally, HMS Queen Elizabeth is currently deployed on it’s vainglorious sabre-rattling mission with US warplanes, this must make it an American vessel. The dependency of the UK military… Read more »
You said the ship was run independent of England.
It isn’t.
That is all we are talking about.
As the EU if the allow in completely undefended countries.
Sorry Mac I don’t understand your last sentence “As the EU if the allow in completely undefended countries”, doesn’t make sense. Are you suggesting the EU won’t allow countries to join if they aren’t members of some sort of military alliance? The EU is not now and never has been a defence organisation. I think you’ll also find that the Republic of Ireland, Austria, Sweden and Finland were also neutral countries when they joined. Who said anything about joining the EU in any case? All I was suggesting was that an independent Wales would be free to collaborate with other… Read more »
The EU won’t admit a state that can’t defend its (EU) border.
There would be no withdrawal from the UK that would allow Wales to sit on the island of Great Britain with the Indy fabled “we wouldn’t need defence.”
Reference this ship. Do you think there are research institutions who won’t deal with Bangor University because they are part of the UK. Or the UK Government tells Bangor who they can collaborate with?
Even the article talks about a UK element.
You’re are missing my point, the point is that Wales is perfectly capable of running it’s own institutions and does not need the United Kingdom to, for example, have a scientific research vessel. As for the EU not admitting a state that can’t defend its border, I’m not sure where you got that from. To become a member state an applicant country has to comply wit all 35 chapters of the conditions of membership. Chapter 31 relates to foreign, security and defence policy and states that: “The common foreign and security policy (CFSP) and the European security and defence policy… Read more »
We are talking about this vessel which has and is part owned by English based companies! You think it is being crewed by undergraduates? Is this ship a Wales-only venure? No. Has it ever been? No. Forget Wales voting out of the EU. Forget that Turkey and Ukraine would be way ahead of it getting in. Forget that less than 20% of people could be cobbled together to vote for Independence. Forget all those things. Wales would have land and sea borders as an EU nation that it would be obligated to administer EU regulations at. Thus needed defence. Forget… Read more »
Firstly, I don’t know why you’re so obsessed with the EU. In my first response to you I mentioned an independent Wales co-operating with other nations, no mention was made of the EU (check my first response if you don’t believe me) yet you have decided to conflate this with an independent Wales re-joining the EU. International cooperation (of any sort) does not automatically mean EU membership, only Brexit supporters think like that. The UK is still a member of the European Space Agency (and therefore cooperates with other European nations), does that make it an EU member? No it… Read more »
My heart is warmed by the sight and story of the Prince Madog learner’s ship.