The Ship That Never Was

The following text was typed -- E&OE -- with permission from Brown, Son and Ferguson, Glasgow, who retain copyright, for a student project from an article by Shaun Ivory in Nautical Magazine, vol. 256. No. 5, November 1996

The Guinness Book of Records is now a long-established and — for many — indispensable part of our rapidly changing world. Ready access is available to all who need to know the highest, deepest, heaviest. longest whatever. Quizzes are set and arguments settled by quickly thumbing through the latest edition. Indeed, it’s surprising that someone hasn’t as yet applied for entry on the grounds that, “The fastest time recorded for locating a fact in the Guinness Book of Records is...” etc. And surely it holds its own record for being the book most seen on secondhand book stalls — nothing dates faster than last year’s GBR!

But what of the records that might have been? Those glorious ‘almosts' which, but for a quirk of fate or hiccup of history, might still be standing as Classic examples of humankind’s initiative.

A typical case was HMS Habbakuk (after an Old Testament prophet) weighing in at over three million tonnes at a time when the Queen Mary, the largest ship afloat, tipped the nautical scales at a mere 86,000 tonnes. Over 2,000 feet long, with a hull designed to be 30 feet thick, the Habbakuk was virtually a floating airstrip. It didn’t need to go very fast, its power being easily supplied by a dozen outboard motors. The only obstacle to its splashing into the water — and the record books — was VE Day 1945.

Oh, just one more little thing ... it would have been made of ice!

Habbakuk was just one of the (often) bizarre ideas dreamed up by Geoffrey Pyke, cousin of Magnus Pyke — the irrepressible, arm-waving eccentric who seemed to dominate British television screens in the 70s and early ’80s.

Geoffrey, in the same mould, was a polymath whose varied career spanned journalism, spying, a spell as educator and of course ... invention. It was this last qualification that brought him to the attention of Lord Mountbatten, who in 1944 (this date is doubtful, probably 1943, see Habbakuk, Ed.) was motivating his famous think tank for the war effort. Some of Pyke’s earlier ideas — like the large flexible tube that would carry men and material along the sea bed to be disgorged onto enemy beaches — meant he was a natural for Mountbatten’s team. Whilst the underwater tube concept was a non-starter others, like his Snowcat vehicle, are still with us today.

Pyke’s aircraft carrier made from ice was a typical example of lateral thinking before that term was generally coined; he was essentially an idea-generator, relying on his superior’s clout to provide the wherewithal that would turn his dreams into reality. But a ship from frozen water? ... Even some of the brilliant boffins around him were dubious.

The memo that Pyke sent to Mountbatten outlining his idea was itself a prime entry for the record books; weighing in at over two kilos it was several hundred pages long. The memo began by suggesting it was possible to produce a vary heat-resistant ice by mixing it with wood-pulp. This notion had been inspired when Pyke noticed how the Inuit traditionally built their homes by mixing ice with lichen to make it strong. Pyke proposed a more modern adaptation of the same idea; freeze together huge blocks of a mixture of water and some substance cheap and plentiful, like wood-pulp. He calculated the resulting solid would have the strength and stress resistance of steel.

In fact, subsequent experiments show that a 14% mix was actually stronger than steel. Promptly named Pykrete it was found to be easily fashioned into shipbuilding material. Pyke took a sample block to Mountbatten, who in turn dashed off to present it to Winston Churchill. The story goes that Winnie was in his bath, smoking the ubiquitous cigar, when the ice man cometh. Called in to the inner sanctum Mountbatten was commanded to sit on a chair close by the bath and report. The Chief of Combined Operations (he said later it was an impulse) dropped the large slab of Pykrete into the soapy water, where it floated between the war leader’s legs, impervious to the heat.

The rest is almost history, a group of engineers met in Canada and commenced building experimental models of the ship to test the practicability of Pyke’s theory. The first 100 foot model proved hugely successful, stronger sven than the initial tests had indicated. Mountbatten fired a shotgun at close range and close examination showed no damage. A later trial, whilst equally successful, almost ended in disaster when Mountbatten’s ammunition ricocheted off the bullet-proof material and just missed terminating the career of a four-star general.

By the spring of ’45 the go-ahead was given for the full-size construction of the ship, but then victory was announced in Europe, followed quickly by the capitulation of Japan.

Pykrete was still considered commercially viable, so much so that he was urged to patent his invention. But he decided against it, and the entire project ended up in the archives of Mountbatten’s home, Broadlands. Pyke died of cancer in 1948.

Had HMS Habbakuk reached the slipway stage it would undoubtedly have been the world’s largest artifact. Not only that, it would have possessed a safety factor hitherto unheard of in naval vessels. With its 30 foot-thick walls Habbakuk could have easily withstood the impact of a torpedo. In the unlikely event that a crack should appear, why, simply turn up the on-board refrigeration for a few minutes and Hey Presto! full speed ahead as normal.

Of course, research into ice-bonding has gone on since then but nobody — not even the petroleum industry — has apparently come up with a good enough reason to employ ice-alloys in their tankers. Which is curious, given that enormous oil reserves are now known to lie within both the Arctic and Antarctic Circles.

Then again ... maybe they’re Just keeping it on ice! Thaw — it was not until mid-May that ice conditions abated in the Great Lakes this year (1996). Then, cargo movement in US-flag lakers rebounded significantly. Major US-flag fleets working the Lakes carried 13.6 million net tons of dry- and liquid-bulk cargoes, an increase of 3.6 per cent compared with the corresponding period in 1995. Iron ore cargoes carried in US-flag lakers totalled 6,860,951 tons in May, an increase of 5 per cent compared to a year ago. Lead by an 11 per cent increase in western coal cargoes, the coal float for US-flag Lake carriers increased 75,000 tons to 2.4 million tons. Limestone cargo increased 3% to 3.8 million tons.