Fire in the Deep

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning, Dame Jane Francis, Director of the British Antarctic Survey, discussed the launch of the scientific research vessel Sir David Attenborough. This ship is equipped with some submarines including one named Boaty McBoatface, the name originally voted by the public for the research ship itself. Asked about the cutting edge science that the submarines could do she explained that

... They'll be launched from the ship and will go off under their own steam...

And there was me thinking that these wonders of technical innovation would surely be powered by a couple of banks of sweating oarsmen working to the monotonous beating of a gong as they work out their criminal sentences. I really must get more up to date.