Most famous as the ship that carried Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton on their first unsuccessful trip to reach the South Pole, RRS Discovery was the last wooden three-masted ship to be built in the British Isles, and the first specifically designed for research. Built by the Dundee Shipbuilders Company, at a cost of £51,000, her keel was laid on 16th March 1900 at the Panmure Shipyard, Dundee. Built of Oak and Elm, with an ice casing of Greenheart, RRS Discovery is 172ft (52m) long with a beam of 33ft (10m). She has a displacement of 1570 tons and her maximum speed was just 8 knots. RRS Discovery carried a compliment of 11 officers and 36 men.

Built in a little over a year RRS Discovery was launched on 21st March 1901 by Lady Markham, wife of the President of the Royal Geographical Society. The following June RRS Discovery sailed from Dundee to London to take on stores leaving on 31st July to be on show during Royal Regatta Week, on the Isle of Wight. It was here, on 5th August 1901, that RRS Discovery received a royal visit from King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. The following day she set sail for Antarctica.

Stopping at Macquarie Island and New Zealand the journey south had taken a full five months when, on 8th January 1902, she sighted the Antarctic coastline for the first time. Charting the coastline for the first month RRS Discovery weighed anchor for the winter on 8th February 1902, in McMurdo Sound. Unbeknown at the time this was where she would to remain, locked in ice, for the next two years. Eventually freed from the frozen seas on 16th February 1904, by the use of controlled explosives, RRS Discovery finally sailed for home, arriving back at Spithead on 10th September 1904, to a heroes welcome.

By this time the National Antarctic Expedition was in serious financial trouble and the RRS Discovery had to be sold. In 1905 the Hudson's Bay Company purchased RRS Discovery for use as a cargo vessel between London and Hudson Bay, Canada. During the Great War RRS Discovery carried munitions to the Russians under charter from the French Government, and in 1917 she carried supplies to the White Russians during the Russian Revolution. At the cessation of hostilities RRS Discovery found herself chartered by various companies for work in the Atlantic, but outdated and outclassed by more modern merchant vessels she was soon laid up, spending the early 1920s as the headquarters for the 16th Stepney Sea Scouts.

In 1923 RRS Discovery's fortunes were revived when the Crown Agents for the Colonies purchased her for further research work in the Antarctic. Re-registered to Port Stanley in the Falklands and designated as a Royal Research ship, Discovery underwent a £114,000 re-fit before sailing in October 1925 for the South Seas to chart the migration patterns of whale stocks. RRS Discovery's research role continued when the British Government lent her in 1929, to the B.A.N.Z.A.R.E. (British, Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Expeditions) expeditions, lasting until 1931.

Returning to Britain, her research days now over, RRS Discovery was laid up until 1936 when she was presented to the Boys Scouts Association as a training ship for Sea Scouts. During the war years her engines and boilers were removed for scrap to help with the war effort. Too costly for the Scouts Association to maintain RRS Discovery was transferred to the Admiralty in 1955 for use as a drill ship for the Royal Navy Auxiliary Reserve. As the years passed her condition deteriorated and when no longer of use to the Navy, she was in danger of being scrapped. Saved from the breakers Yard by the Maritime Trust, into whose care she passed in 1979, her future had been secured. Berthed on the River Thames and open to the public, the trust spent some £500,000 on essential restoration until RRS Discovery was passed into the ownership of the Dundee Heritage Trust in 1985.

On 28th March 1986 RRS Discovery left London aboard the cargo ship 'Happy Mariner' to make her only journey home to the town that built her, arriving on the River Tay on 3rd April to a tumultuous Scottish welcome. Moved to a custom built dock in 1992, RRS Discovery is now the centrepiece of Dundee's fabulous new visitor attraction 'Discovery Point'.