Boaty McBoatface tops the poll as people's choice for new Royal Research Ship

Monday 18 April 2016

Boaty McBoatface has gone leagues ahead, topping the poll as the people's choice for the name of the new £200 million Royal Research ship.

The name put forward as a bit of fun by former BBC Radio Jersey presenter James Hand got 124,109 votes in the competition launched by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC).

Mr Hand apologised for coming up with the name that's had three times as many votes as the runner-up, the RRS Poppy-Mai, and said the storm it created had "legs of its own".

He said that while he stands by Boaty McBoatface as a "brilliant name" for a boat, he actually voted for RRS David Attenborough to be the new name.

When the competition closed yesterday he tweeted: "Thanks to everyone who took #BoatyMcBoatface in right spirit. Final say goes to @NERCscience, and there's plenty of worthy winners."

The NERC thanked everyone for their suggestions on its website posting: " We are no longer accepting suggestions to name our ship as we have now reached the closing date of April 16.

"We've had an extremely high volume of suggestions and will now review all of the suggested names. The final decision will be announced in due course."

The research council received more than 7,000 entries during the one-month competition period but it will be up to science minister Jo Johnson to decide whether Boaty McBoatface floats his boat as the best name for the new ship.

The top five suggestions are:

- RRS Boaty McBoatface - 124,109

- RRS Poppy-Mai - 34,371

- RRS Henry Worsley - 15,231

- RRS It's bloody cold here - 10,679

- RRS David Attenborough - 10,284

The boat is being built in Birkenhead on Merseyside and should be finished by 2019.