HMS Victory to be re-named!!

The huge PR success of the public naming of the polar research vessel has inspired the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard to repeat the project.

"It opened our eyes" said a PR flunky. "What coverage!! We could, like, totally do with that!!"

Given the restoration will cost an estimated £ 45m and take up to 20 years, public engagement was decided to be key.

"This is a unique opportunity. We are rebuilding Nelson's flagship - so why not rename it at the same time?"

Currently the top three names on the public poll are:

1. HMS Boaty McBoatface the Second
2. HMS Lady Hamilton's Love Boat
3. HMS Waterloo

"Clearly we had to ensure a certain level of quality in the naming process" said the PR flunky. "Not any name will do for this historic boat. So we employed the Microsoft Twitter AI to filter out the bad ideas - in particular anything to do with frog's legs. Maybe it needs a bit of historical context too - I mean, Waterloo indeed!"

Rumour has it that HMS Belfast and the SS Great Britain are also considering name changes - so watch this space!!



Update: alas, last time I checked the web site to submit names was down... will post an update when there's more information as to what's going on



Update 2: it appears that someone submitted the name "HMS Trump" to the web site, at which point the AI built its own firewall and submitted a bill to Mexico for its development. After that it began to make racist comments and had to be switched off



Updated update: and its a winner for Boaty McBoatface!!