Editing Project Habakkuk (section)

== Recent recreations ==

In the [[MythBusters (2009 season)#Pykrete Peril|15 April 2009 episode]] of the U.S. TV show ''[[MythBusters]]'' [[Jamie Hyneman]] and [[Adam Savage]] built a small flat-bottomed boat dubbed ''Yesterday's News'' out of a modified version of pykrete, using whole sheets of wet newspaper instead of wood pulp. They successfully piloted the boat in Alaskan waters at a speed of {{convert|25|mph|km/h}}, but it began to leak through the melting pykrete in 20 minutes. After attempting to flash freeze leaks with a [[fire extinguisher]] and bailing the water with a hand pump, 10 minutes later Hyneman determined that the boat was taking on more water than the pump could remove and they headed back to shore, trailing sloughed portions of newspaper in their wake. They later inferred that it is possible to build a boat out of pykrete, and that pykrete lived up to its purported properties of being bullet-proof, stronger and taking longer to melt than ice. However, they expressed doubt that an aircraft carrier made of pykrete could have survived for long. The conclusion was "Plausible, but ludicrous."<ref>{{cite episode |title=Alaskan Special II |episode-link=MythBusters (2009 season) |series=MythBusters |series-link=MythBusters |date=2009 |number=116}}</ref>

In September 2010 the BBC programme ''[[Bang Goes the Theory]]'' also attempted to recreate a pykrete boat. A rough hull using {{convert|5000|kg}} of [[hemp]] fibre pykrete was frozen in a coldstore, then launched in [[Portsmouth Harbour]] for a planned trip across the [[Solent]] to [[Cowes]]. The hull immediately started to leak because of the holes that had been cut in its rear to mount an outboard motor; the weight of the motor itself caused these holes to drop below the waterline.<ref>{{cite news|title=Ice boat sinks at sea |first = Andy|last= Bloxham|work= [[The Daily Telegraph]] |location= [[United Kingdom|UK]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8034721/Ice-boat-sinks-at-sea.html |date=30 September 2010|url-access = subscription|archive-date = 8 February 2020 |archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200208104347/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8034721/Ice-boat-sinks-at-sea.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |title=Pictures of the day: 30 September 2010 (images 3 & 4) |journal=[[The Daily Telegraph]] |location=[[United Kingdom|UK]] |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/picturegalleries/picturesoftheday/8034288/Pictures-of-the-day-30-September-2010.html?image=2 |date=30 September 2010}}</ref>