Royal Navy's only deep-water survey ship is off the market and set to return to duty
The sale of HMS Scott has been cancelled and the specialist ocean survey vessel will stay in service until 2033.
She was listed for sale in the UK Defence Equipment Sales Authority (DESA) brochure last year.
But now the largest survey ship in western Europe will undergo an extensive overhaul in Falmouth before returning to duty.
HMS Scott has previously faced significant technical problems, including serious issues with her ballast system.
She's also the only deep-water survey ship in the Royal Navy, and the fifth largest vessel in the fleet.
The ship is equipped with advanced sonar systems for underwater mapping and is regularly deployed for hydrographic surveys, where she captures high-resolution underwater images using sonar beams across a range of several kilometres.
The ship also serves an auxiliary role as a mine countermeasures vessel and is named after the famous Arctic explorer Robert Falcon Scott.
Due to her crew rotation system, she can stay at sea for 300 days a year, meaning the ship can stay at her work while the crew get time away.
Out of about 78 officers and sailors, only two-thirds are ever on board at the same time.
In February 2005, Scott was deployed to survey the Indian Ocean seabed around the origin point of the 2004 earthquake and tsunami, which was conducted in depths of 1,000m to 5,000m.
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