Maritime 2017: Can the ocean recover? by Maritime Foundation

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MARITIME

Susan White / USFWS PD

Can the ocean recover?

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MARITIME Contents 1

Our maritime future • Editorial Julian Parker OBE

The state of the oceans • Overfishing and climate change Professor Callum Roberts , University of York

Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated • Illegal fishing Peter Horn, the Pew Trusts

11 Getting below the surface • Public understanding of the ocean Louisa Hooper, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation 14 Improving the health of the ocean • Marine reserves Reddy and Briggs, the Pew Trusts 17 Sea vision • Maritime situational awareness Rear Admiral Nick Lambert 20 The plastic tide • Sky Ocean Rescue Thomas Moore, Sky News Published November 2017 by the Maritime Foundation Charity No. 286784 202 Lambeth Road, London SE1 7JW www.bmcf.org.uk Managing Editor: Anthony Harvey Editor: Hugh Brazier Designer: Louis Mackay / www.louismackaydesign.co.uk Advertising: SDB Marketing Printed by Swan Press, Shoreham, UK All articles in this publication are the copyright of their named contributors and may be reproduced only with the contributor’s permission. Any opinions expressed by contributors and advertisers are their own and do not necessarily represent views or policies of the Maritime Foundation. The Maritime Foundation is a registered charity which promotes Britain’s interests across the maritime field. Its purpose is to inform and raise public and parliamentary awareness of the importance of the UK’s manifold dependence on the sea, through education, training and research, and through the Foundation’s annual Maritime Media Awards. All images in this publication are copyright and, unless marked as Public Domain (PD) or covered by a Creative Commons licence, may not be reproduced without the permission of the copyright holder.

23 Pole position: science at sea • Polar and marine research Linda Capper 26 Mapping the deep ocean floor • A global bathymetric database David Mearns 29 The shipping revolution is here • Reducing emissions at sea Lars Carlsson, Windship Technology 32 Fixed-seat rowing Photographs by Kathy Mansfield 34 Freedom of the sea • Geopolitics of the oceans Rear Admiral Chris Parry 38 A statement of national Intent • HMS Queen Elizabeth WARSHIPS International Fleet Review 41 Securing British waters • The need for integrated maritime intelligence Dr Dave Sloggett 45 Raising the standard • Changes in the UK Ship Register Michael Parker, Maritime and Coastguard Agency 48 When the ship comes in • Teaching children about the sea Stephanie Zarach 51 Creativity, confidence and independence afloat • RYA training Sara Mills, Royal Yachting Association 55 Meeting the training challenge • Seafarer training in the UK Kathryn Neilson, Merchant Navy Training Board

can the ocean recover?

| Editorial

Our maritime future Julian Parker obe, Chairman, the Maritime Foundation

options for ending illegal fishing, and Admiral Nick Lambert provides more detail about satellite technology that has been developed to shine a light on what is happening at sea, both in fisheries and in other spheres of activity.

Bleached coral, a consequence of rising temperatures and other changes in the marine ecosystem, here off Okinawa, Japan. Like a canary in the mine, it is a warning, not of inevitable catastrophe, but that urgent action is needed.

Media influence is a powerful way of changing attitudes. Louise Hooper of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation examines imaginative ways of changing public perceptions, and Thomas Moore of Sky News describes the deeply disturbing scenes uncovered when reporting on the destructive effect of plastics in our oceans. As individuals, we all have a responsibility to take ownership of our plastic waste. Less easy to evaluate is the health of the seabed, but thanks to the pioneering work of David Mearns we now have greater access to the depths and the potential to develop a more comprehensive understanding of environmental impacts. RSS Sir David Attenborough will soon be exploring the depths of the polar regions, and Linda Capper notes that as well as maintaining Britainâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leading role in ocean research, the vessel has become an emblem

Human intervention has been responsible for the damage, and it is up to us to do what we can to remedy the situation

Stephanie Roach / Catlin Seaview Survey / The Ocean Agency

elcome to the world of Maritime. This new publication is launched by the Maritime Foundation to add momentum to the growing sense of awareness that the natural environment, just as much as our history, is a vital part of our maritime heritage. In this sense 2017 is a propitious year, with the World Ocean Summit in New York following on from the Paris Agreement that emerged from the UN Climate Change Conference in December 2015. Never before has the world come together in such strength to expose the folly of overexploiting our ocean resources. Ocean health is not only about resources; it is significantly connected to climate change. Human intervention has been responsible for the damage, and it is up to us to do what we can to remedy the situation. World institutions typically honour sovereignty, but in this case the sovereign demands of one country will inevitably expand to take in the atmosphere and the sea. The challenge is to recognise this and find globally acceptable solutions. This publication is a tribute to those who have put the broader interests of humanity above their own personal interests. This inaugural issue of Maritime starts by focusing on the state of the marine environment, posing the key question, â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;can the ocean recover?â&#x20AC;&#x2122; Professor Callum Roberts reviews the harm that has already been done and the continuing overexploitation, and discusses strategies for mitigating the effects of inevitable future changes. Simon Reddy and Johnny Briggs of the Pew Trusts show how it is now possible to monitor and enforce the preservation of protected areas, while Peter Horn discusses the

EDITORIAL

the steps that are being taken to update and improve the UK Ship Register, and the consequent reinvigoration of the Red Ensign. The arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth in Portsmouth in August was an equally potent symbol of national intent for the Royal Navy. Looking beyond these shores, Lars Carlsson discusses an imminent step change in the regulations governing shipping worldwide, which should achieve a dramatic cut in emissions as well as providing opportunities for a revival of wind technology as an auxiliary means of propulsion for large vessels. Maritime affairs are often poorly understood outside the circles of those who are directly involved with them. Pinpointing the need for a better-informed public, Stephanie Zarach argues that it is time start fostering maritime awareness in the classroom, while Sara Mills says there is no better way to learn about the sea than getting afloat and signing up for an RYA course. The professional dimension of seafaring is being addressed by the Merchant Navy Training Board, and Kathryn Neilson describes the exciting potential not only in shipping but also in marine service industry careers. Although awareness of maritime issues may have been in the doldrums, some encouraging signs are emerging that the maritime sector is being given a greater emphasis in our national endeavour. We in the Maritime Foundation hope that this issue of Maritime will contribute to that, and encourage you for your own part in that same endeavour. n

Not surprisingly, there are new challenges emerging

A velvet swimcrab with plumrose anemones in Scottish coastal waters

for a renewed interest in British shipbuilding. Not surprisingly, there are new challenges emerging. Admiral Chris Parry examines the tensions implicit in the control of littoral areas and the open ocean, and discusses the geopolitics of maintaining the freedom of the seas, while Dr Dave Sloggett explains the threats to our maritime security and the counter-measures available to ensure the surveillance and protection of British waters. Significant progress has been made in implementing the UK government’s Maritime Growth Study, the findings of which were published last year. Michael Parker explains

The question is whether we can find sustainable ways of being sustained by the ocean. Small-scale local fishing, as shown here by a small vessel off the Aberdeenshire coast, is not culpable for imperilling worldwide fish stocks.

NOAA / Okeanos / CCASA2,0U

Pacific white-sided dolphins keep a research vessel company

can the ocean recover?

| Overfishing and climate change

The state of the oceans Professor Callum Roberts surveys our changing oceans, and asks what, if anything, can be done to control overfishing and the effects of climate change There was a grandeur in everything around … Not a human being but ourselves for miles; and no sound heard but the pulsations of the great Pacific. — Richard Henry Dana, author of Two Years Before the Mast, 1840

Hunting and fishing are the longest-standing effects that people have had on the sea. When whaling spread in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, it became one of the world’s first international industries, second only to slavery. When engines were added to boats in the late nineteenth century, fishing spread

A healthy seabed teeming with aquatic life; but with less oxygen in the water, fish will grow more slowly and decline in numbers.

Octavio Aburto

hose who have spent long months and years at sea know well the immensity of the ocean. Those of us less familiar with the sea at first hand have our own views of its size, based on school atlases or long-haul plane journeys. Seen from outer space, one half of the planet – the Pacific side – is almost entirely ocean. The scale is breathtaking, humbling. But these views are twodimensional and miss the greater truth of the ocean – it is volume that counts, not area. The average depth of the sea is 3800 m, which, as a few simple calculations reveal, means that it occupies more than 95 per cent of the habitable space on planet Earth. Whether you think of the sea in two dimensions or three, its colossal size is undisputed, a perception that has led us to three assumptions: (1) we can take what we want from the ocean, (2) we can put into it what we don’t want, with no comeback, and (3) we cannot change the sea. For most of human history, these assumptions have not strayed far from the truth. But the last century has seen an unprecedented acceleration of human influence on the earth. In this brave new world, the only thing than can be taken for granted is change. In this article, I summarise some of the changes under way in the sea.

Hunting and fishing

further afield, went deeper, and became ever more efficient. Governments encouraged fishing in the aftermath of World War 2 with subsidies, greatly expanding fishing fleets, a trend that continues to this day in countries like China and Myanmar. Lately, however, fishing has met with diminishing returns. A recent study shows that global fish landings peaked in 1996 at over 130 million tonnes. Since then, landings have declined by 1 million tonnes per year. Better management in places like the US and Europe have turned fortunes here, as testified by recent headlines announcing the recovery of North Sea cod. But across much of the developing world there is poor

A recent study shows that global fish landings peaked in 1996

T H E S TAT E O F T H E O C E A N S

Cod, a species whose stocks in the North Atlantic and North Sea came close to collapse in the early 21st century. Restraint in fishing has allowed North Sea stocks to recover to some degree, but the ecology in which the cod previously thrived remains in peril, not least from bottom trawling.

Illegal drift nets being set from a Moroccan fishing vessel..

management and the picture is bleak. Rapid expansion of fish farming has so far sheltered us from the consequences of overfishing, increasing supplies faster than the rate of population growth. But farming methods must change if productivity is to be sustained.

Climate change Paradoxically, people are good at change and very bad at it too. Over the long course

Metropolitan Museum of Art PD

The Gulf Stream (1899) by Winslow Homer. A man drifts on a dismasted and rudderless wreck in the wake of a hurricane, awaiting his fate between hungry sharks and an approaching waterspout. A depiction of the ocean by a painter who knew its power to endanger those who depend on it.

of time, our adaptability and ingenuity have served us well, bringing us to the planetary dominance we enjoy today. But over shorter timescales we prefer what we know and avoid change wherever possible. That means that climate change – as a supremely disruptive influence over all our lives – was always going to be difficult to address. Much easier to deny or belittle problems than to deal with them, which accounts for the noisy clamour of headin-the-sand deniers and contrarians. But deal with it we must, because while we vacillate, the problems get worse.

Warming The oceans are a giant air-conditioner for the planet. Without them, global warming would long ago have become intolerable. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, act like the glass of a greenhouse, trapping some of the sun’s incoming heat. Every year, the sea absorbs heat equivalent to 17 times all the energy generated by people today. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the oceans have taken up 93 per cent of the

T H E S TAT E O F T H E O C E A N S

Low-lying landscape typical of small island nations in the Pacific and Indian Oceans, whose continuing existence is threatened by rising sea levels as a result of climate change.

Callum Roberts

extra heat trapped by greenhouse gases. Over the last fifty years or so, all that extra heat has increased the temperature of the ocean surface by an average of 0.6 °C. It doesn’t sound much, but some places have heated up by more than this – for example, the North Sea has warmed by more than 1.0 °C. The rise is limited because water has a huge specific heat capacity, much greater than that of the atmosphere. If all this extra heat had stayed in the atmosphere, the air would have warmed more than 36 °C by now!

Oxygen For those of us who live in cold countries, a little bit of global warming might not seem amiss. Indeed, the first scientist to understand global warming was Swedish, Svante Arrhenius. In his famous book, Worlds in the Making, published in 1906, he said that with carbon dioxide emissions ‘we may hope to enjoy ages with more equable and better climates, especially as regards the colder regions of the earth, ages when the earth will bring forth much more abundant crops than at present, for the benefit of rapidly propagating mankind.’ If only it were that simple. In this world, changing one thing, like temperature, has far-reaching and sometimes unexpected consequences. One simple physical property of increasing the temperature of water is that it can hold less dissolved oxygen. This has a surprising impact on marine life. With less oxygen in the water, fish will grow more slowly and reach smaller sizes than before. Smaller and slower-growing fish will produce fewer offspring and will support less productive fisheries. The tropics will experience the biggest losses, hitting developing countries hardest.

Productivity Life in the sea will take a second blow from warming. Over much of the tropics and warm temperate seas the ocean has two layers. Warmed by the sun, a layer at the surface floats on top of a cooler, denser layer beneath, with a sharp temperature gradient between them called the thermocline. The warm layer has most of the sunshine needed for photosynthesis but, away from coasts, is starved of the nutrients needed for plant growth. This is because nutrients sink from the surface in the form of dead bodies and faeces, passing below the thermocline. By contrast, the deep sea has lots of nutrients, but little or no sunlight, so plants cannot grow there. For the sea to be productive, there must be upward mixing of nutrients, breaking through the thermocline. Storms and upwelling currents generate this mixing, but as the world heats up, the warm surface layer will get thicker and more stable. In a warmer world, fewer nutrients will be delivered to the surface and plant production will decline. Already, low-productivity deserts in the sea are growing. As almost all marine life depends ultimately on plants, the adverse effects will be inescapable.

Sea-level rise Warm water takes up slightly more space than cold, so global warming is pushing up sea levels. Sea levels have increased by more

The tropics will experience the biggest losses, hitting developing countries hardest

T H E S TAT E O F T H E O C E A N S

greenhouse gas emissions. Even if the Paris Agreement is implemented to the letter, there will still be enormous disruption. All the adverse effects I describe will grow for decades more before they peak and begin to fall. Most projections see sea levels continuing to rise for more than a century. So we must concentrate as well on increasing the resilience of marine ecosystems and coastal communities to the effects of climate change. Falling ocean productivity could be offset by reducing fishing pressure and creating more marine protected areas. Greater protection will help ocean life to cope better with rapid environmental change. Sea-level rises can be ameliorated by protecting and replanting coastal wetlands such as mangrove forests and salt marshes, which trap sediments and grow upwards with rising seas. Coastal nations of the world have committed to setting aside 10 per cent of the oceans as marine protected areas by 2020. Recent announcements of enormous new protected areas suggest we might achieve this. But scientific research indicates we need to go further, with a new target of 30 per cent by 2030, including waters on the high seas where sovereignty is shared by all nations. It is too late to avoid change, but we still have scope to steer the planetary ship to less inclement waters. n NASA

Govt of Kiribati / CCA3.0U

A dwelling affected by coastal erosion on South Tarawa, Kiribati, Micronesia. The highest land on the atoll is barely 3 metres above sea level.

Hurricane Irma, one of the most intense and long-lived storms ever recorded, which devastated many Caribbean islands and parts of the Florida coast in September 2017. Rising sea levels put coast-dwelling populations at greater risk from storm surges.

Most projections see sea levels continuing to rise for more than a century

than 20 centimetres since the beginning of the twentieth century, about a third of it from thermal expansion, the rest from ice melt. The rate of sea-level rise has doubled in the last 25 years and will more than double again in the next 25. Estimates of the rise by the end of the century keep going up. In 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted a rise of up to 59 centimetres by 2100. Their most recent report in 2014 predicts a rise of up to 82 centimetres, and there are credible estimates that take rises above one metre. Six hundred million people already live in low-lying coastal regions, vulnerable to sea-level rise and storm surges. Fertile deltas include some of the most productive agricultural lands on the planet and could be especially hard hit. The present flows of refugees seem large, but they are a trickle compared to what is to come.

What can be done? The only good solution to the impacts of climate change is to urgently reduce

Callum Roberts is Professor of Marine Conservation at the University of York, and winner of the 2013 Mountbatten Literary Award for his book Ocean of Life: How our Seas are Changing (Penguin Books).

can the ocean recover?

| Illegal fishing

Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated Peter Horn mbe, of the Pew Trusts’ Ending Illegal Fishing project, explains how the net is closing in on fisheries crime worldwide

engagement with the seafood industry, and, above all, strong leadership by policymakers and law enforcement officials, including a willingness to share information and resources to drive change.

International policies create transparency After surpassing the critical threshold of 25 ratifications, the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) – the first international treaty designed to curb illegal fishing – entered into force in June 2016, seven years after being adopted by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations.2 The pact aims to keep IUU fish out of the global market by allowing Parties to the agreement to require foreign-flagged fishing vessels to present information on licensing, ownership and catch when they arrive in port.

Laws preventing IUU fishing have little or no effect without robust governance

Sara Mooers / USCG PD

perating under the radar, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing represents a global threat to the long-term health of our oceans, worsens the impact of overfishing on critical marine ecosystems, and jeopardises the livelihoods of tens of millions who depend on ocean resources.1 The oceans play a vital role in the social and economic development of many countries. But with as much as 26 million tonnes of seafood taken illegally from our seas each year – that’s one in every five fish sold – IUU fishing is more than just a danger to the environment. It is a widespread, often highly organised, security threat that can limit the ability of nations to feed, employ and safeguard their citizens. Up to $23.5 billion a year is potentially lost in the global market due to IUU fishing, robbing law-abiding fishers of their economic security and livelihoods. Laws preventing IUU fishing and related crimes have little or no effect without robust governance, including proper implementation and enforcement. In other words, efforts to end illegal fishing should be designed and executed in a way that is integrated, comprehensive, and aligned with the views of all key players. But while robust governance is necessary for a successful battle against IUU fishing, it is only one part of the solution. Success will also require the creation and implementation of international agreements and policies, cooperation among enforcement authorities, advanced technological solutions,

Officials can then order inspections of vessels and ban entry of any that are suspected of IUU activity, or those with tainted legal histories. Port officials are obligated to share what they learn with neighbouring countries to prevent illegal fishers ‘port shopping’. The treaty also

A fisheries enforcement ship (left) waits as authorities board a vessel observed fishing in the Philippine Sea.

I L L E G A L , U N R E P O R T E D, U N R E G U L AT E D

NOAA PD

allows port authorities to deny fuel and other services to vessels that may be linked to illegal fishing or unlawful transhipment of catch. As a result of the PSMA, seafood retailers, in hopes of weeding out illegally caught seafood, have the opportunity to demand better assessments of where and by whom the fish they’re selling is caught. By eliminating the possibility of financial gain, the PSMA removes the incentive for poachers to steal – and responsible fishers can proceed without having to compete with illicit activity. The Pew Trusts has continued to advocate for the widespread ratification of the PSMA even after the Agreement went into force; the treaty is strengthened as more countries sign on. The Trusts continues to work with partners such as FISH-i:Africa, the Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, and the Central America Fisheries and Aquaculture Organization to encourage key countries to join this important agreement.3 But the focus now is on implementation. By assessing the capacity of countries to respond to IUU fishing, Pew is helping these countries, especially those lacking in resources, to identify gaps in port controls and determine additional steps to take. Simon Ager / Sea Shepherd Global

The PSMA removes the incentive for poachers to steal

Foreign fishing vessels seized by the Indonesian authorities for illegal fishing await disposal near the port of Bitung, Sulawesi.

The rogue trawler Thunder sinking in 2015 off the African coast. The multinational crew scuttled the vessel and were taken aboard the conservation organisation Sea Shepherd’s vessel MY Bob Barker, (left in the picture), which had shadowed Thunder for 10,000 miles from Antarctic waters, where it had been engaged in illegal fishing for Patagonian toothfish.

Fighting the crime wave Policy without enforcement is like a fisherman without a net. With that in mind, and in response to an increase in crimes at sea, Interpol, an intergovernmental organisation that facilitates

international police cooperation, launched Project Scale in 2013, with the support of Pew and the government of Norway.4 This initiative, spanning 190 member countries, employs a suite of tools – including an international alert system for seeking information on suspects and their activities – in an effort to combat fisheries crimes. The Project Scale team, made up of intelligence officers and multidisciplinary experts, is well positioned to coordinate a global response to IUU-related crimes and streamline investigations across borders, while building the capacity of government authorities to acquire up-to-date and actionable information and enforce fisheries laws. Since Project Scale’s launch, Interpol has issued more than 30 notices associated with illegal fishing, which have helped authorities determine the whereabouts and activities of suspected criminals, while chasing others off the water and strengthening collaboration on complex multinational investigations. The most well-known investigation by Project Scale targeted the Thunder, a vessel that had been fishing under various names and flags of registration throughout the Southern Ocean for more than a decade.5 In April 2015, as it was being monitored by an environmental group, the Thunder sank off the coast of São Tomé and Principe. Officials in that country claimed it was an apparent effort to hide evidence of illegal fishing. The captain and two crewmen were later convicted in São Tomé and Principe on a number of charges related to the sinking and using fraudulent documents, for which they received sentences ranging from two years and nine months to three years, as well as being fined a total of nearly €15 million, according to court papers. The owners of the Thunder were not named in the case. Another successful facilitation and information exchange headed by Project Scale came in September 2016 when the Spanish

NOAA PD

I L L E G A L , U N R E P O R T E D, U N R E G U L AT E D

Tracking vessels from space To track and find suspected illegal fishers, national authorities have long relied on conventional, resource-intensive enforcement methods, which can be inefficient, costly, and largely ineffective without adequate manpower. But technology offers a solution.6 In January 2015, Pew teamed up with the Satellite Applications Catapult to introduce a state-of-the-art remote monitoring technology created under Project Eyes on the Seas. The platform utilises an application called Oversea Ocean Monitor to integrate satellite tracking data and imagery data with details about a vessel’s history, licences, ownership, risk index and more.7 When all the information is cross-referenced, the ability to detect potential illegal fishing operations goes far beyond what is possible with conventional monitoring systems. And with analyses being conducted in near-real time, analysts can accomplish in seconds what would normally take days.

A small Indonesian fishing port, typical of a region with tens of thousands of islands and long convoluted coastlines, difficult for marine enforcement authorities to police. But collaboration between with the authorities of Malaysia and the Philippines has proven valuable.

Each user, such as a government agency or fisheries management body, can tailor the system to respond to its needs and databases. Oversea Ocean Monitor uses algorithms to identify patterns of fishing and generate alerts when suspicious activity – such as a vessel fishing inside a marine reserve or a known illegal operator demonstrating signs of fishing in a banned area – is detected. Analysts can quickly share reliable information on suspected offenders with port officials and enforcement authorities, who in turn can stop the crime or confront the suspects when they come into port. Because illegal fishers often steal from the waters of resource-poor nations, the monitoring technology developed under Project Eyes on the Seas was designed as a cost-effective tool for any country seeking to end illegal fishing in its waters. Now being managed by OceanMind, a not-for-profit division of the Catapult, Oversea Ocean Monitor is helping governments and authorities around the world to protect their waters.8

Closing the net on supply chains The increasing global demand for seafood poses many challenges for fisheries management. Seafood, from both wild and farmed sources, is the most valuable food commodity in the world, accounting for nearly $150 billion a year in global trade.9 By eliminating the potential for financial gain, the motivation to fish illegally can be drastically reduced. Pew’s efforts to combat IUU fishing now

Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd, 2017

Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, Food and Environment investigated seven companies, who were part of a business network that was linked to several vessels suspected of illegal fishing, including the Kunlun. According to government documents, the administrative proceedings resulted in fines totalling €17.8 million and commercial fishing bans of up to 23 years for the accused. The ocean is vast, and the enforcement of fisheries laws can prove very challenging for authorities. Closing the door on IUU fishing cannot be done by one individual, country or organisation. Recognising the interconnectedness of criminality at sea, Project Scale is in a unique and well-informed position to identify suspicious behaviour, connect the dots of illicit activity, and enable authorities to act on leads and successfully convict offenders.

Operations Centre, Satellite Applications Catapult.

Oversea Ocean Monitor is helping governments around the world to protect their waters

I L L E G A L , U N R E P O R T E D, U N R E G U L AT E D

Gaël Chardon / CCASA2.0G

Noryangjin fish market, Seoul, South Korea. All over the world, protecting fish stocks and aiding their recovery depends on the retail side of the fish business – both sellers and customers – as well as on preventing illegal catches at sea.

Illegal fishers cannot sell illicit products that the market refuses to buy

include working with wholesale and retail seafood markets to stop illegally caught seafood from entering the supply chain, by using tracking tools, risk assessments, and performance indicators to help businesses know with certainty where, and by whom, the fish they sell was caught.10 By engaging with retailers, processors and the food service sector, Pew hopes to build momentum among businesses for keeping IUU products off the shelf. Illegal fishers cannot sell illicit products that the market refuses to buy. That is why Pew and other stakeholders are encouraging seafood buyers to support and implement policies that address IUU fishing. This will drive positive change for the future health of our ocean and law-abiding fishers – and for consumers.

Leadership to navigate choppy waters Tangible successes have been achieved through the integrated use of global

instruments such as enforceable ocean policies, cooperation among countries, technological advancements, and engagement with the seafood industry. But combating IUU fishing is an arms race. While new solutions are being deployed, unscrupulous operators are looking for novel ways to plunder from the world’s oceans. It is vital for everyone to take responsibility – governments, fisheries, international authorities and consumers all have an important role to play in curbing this destructive practice.11 Over the past few years, front-runners such as Chile and the United Kingdom have emerged, emphasising the significance of marine protected areas, as well as the critical tools and technology that are necessary to monitor them. The United States has also taken critical steps to engage the seafood industry and identify market levers that will help bring about effective change along the supply chain. What’s most important is strong leadership across all these areas of work, accompanied by a willingness to share information and resources – that is what will win the battle against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. n

References 1. Pew Trusts Ending Illegal Fishing project. www. pewtrusts.org/en/projects/ending-illegal-fishingproject. 2. Port State Measures Agreement. www.fao.org/ fishery/psm/agreement/en. 3. FISH-i:Africa, www.fish-i-africa.org. Pacific Islands Forum Fisheries Agency, www.ffa.int. Central America Fisheries and Aquaculture Organization, www.sica.int/ospesca. 4. Project Scale. www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/ Environmental-crime/Projects/Project-Scale. 5. Tony Long, How Interpol’s Project Scale Is helping to curb illegal fishing. Pew Trusts, 7 March 2016. www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/ analysis/2016/03/03/how-interpols-project-scaleis-helping-to-curb-illegal-fishing. 6. Pew Trusts. Issue brief: Project Eyes on the Seas. www.pewtrusts.org/en/research-and-analysis/issue-

briefs/2015/03/project-eyes-on-the-seas. 7. Project Eyes on the Seas: pioneering technology to help end illegal fishing [video]. www.pewtrusts.org/en/ multimedia/video/2015/project-eyes-on-the-seas. 8. OceanMind. https://sa.catapult.org.uk/about-us/ commercial/oceanmind. 9. FAO, The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture, 2016. www.fao.org/3/a-i5555e.pdf. 10. Tony Long and Huw Thomas, Seafood supply chain is key in efforts to end illegal fishing. Compass Points (Pew Trusts), 6 April 2017. www.pewtrusts. org/en/research-and-analysis/blogs/compasspoints/2017/04/06/seafood-supply-chain-is-key-inefforts-to-end-illegal-fishing. 11. Tony Long, Follow the leaders to stop illegal fishing. Pew Trusts, 7 March 2016. www.pewtrusts.org/en/ research-and-analysis/analysis/2016/03/03/follow-theleaders-to-stop-illegal-fishing.

can the ocean recover?

| Public understanding of the ocean

Getting below the surface Louisa Hooper, Environment Programme Manager at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation’s UK Branch, asks what can be done to foster a deeper understanding of ocean conservation

Ulster Wildlife

cean conservationists have never had much of a problem getting public and media attention for penguins, dolphins and whales. But it’s not so easy bringing larger issues of ocean welfare into the spotlight. For those concerned about ocean welfare, this isn’t just frustrating – it’s potentially disastrous. It has meant that politicians have consistently failed to put ocean conservation on the national and international political agenda. According to marine conservationists, political and public engagement with the ocean lag far behind its actual importance to the world. ‘We ignore the life-giving qualities of the ocean at our peril,’ says Professor Dan Laffoley, Marine Vice Chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s World Commission on Protected Areas. He points out that the ocean provides around 99 per cent of our planet’s living space, and absorbs just over a quarter of the carbon dioxide we emit each year and around 93 per cent of the enhanced heating from the greenhouse effect and other human activities. Yet it faces constant threats caused by human activity – ocean warming, overfishing, acidification and plastics dumping. So why is public and political understanding and awareness of these issues so low? Why are people not engaging with ocean welfare in the same way as global warming? At the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation – an international charitable body aiming to promote improvements in human wellbeing – we recently conducted a scoping exercise on the issues facing the ocean, and identified an overarching problem which has huge implications for those wishing to preserve ocean health. Messages about threats are

not getting through because the public is somehow disconnected from the ocean. We wanted to investigate this disconnection further, so that ocean and conservation organisations might address how they present ocean issues to the public and the media. So we commissioned a major study from the FrameWorks Institute, a communications thinktank, to map gaps between expert and public understanding of marine conservation.

A problem that feels too big for us? The report, published in March 2017 and entitled Getting Below the Surface, came up with a paradoxical conclusion. While the British dependence on, and proximity to, the sea has produced many shared understandings about the ocean over the centuries, these often serve to undermine concerns about ocean health. For example, the ocean is often assumed to be immune to negative change. The British public are united in a sense of the importance of the seaside and the nation’s naval history – but find it difficult to look beyond that, to the profound changes that are happening beneath the sea’s surface.

A community group in Northern Ireland taking part in an Ulster Wildlife project. What we think we know of the sea begins with our experience in childhood.

Messages about threats are somehow not getting through because the public is disconnected from the ocean

G E T T I N G B E LO W T H E S U R FAC E

The Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust

Tourists enjoying a sighting of dolphins near the Isle of Mull, in western Scotland.

Pollution of the sea is often perceived as an example of the sort of limitless problem that the individual has no power to solve.

Avoid the language of crisis … it triggers people’s sense of fatalism

The FrameWorks Institute found that although people recognise specific dangers – birds strangled by plastic bags, for example – they don’t understand how ecosystems are interconnected, and how pollution, acidification and warming disrupts them all. Perhaps most strikingly, the report found that people can feel a sense of fatalism and powerlessness when confronted with the problems facing the ocean. In the face of massive issues affecting a massive ocean, what can an individual do? The result can be a state of depressed apathy. ‘How do you keep your eye on pollution?’ said one interviewee. ‘How do you deal with it? It’s so vast. It’s like a void.’ This isn’t helped when organisations use romantic language emphasising the vastness and mystery of the ocean. Intuitively, we tend to think that this will help people understand why the sea is important, but the research reveals the opposite. It only reinforces people’s sense of separation from the ocean, and makes them feel they can have, or have had, little impact. ‘It’s essentially untamable,’ said another interviewee. ‘What’s changed? It’s still – if you looked out at an ocean 1000 years ago, you’d look out on an ocean now.’

Avoid the language of crisis These findings give rise to the report’s most important and surprising recommendations. Those wishing to communicate to the public on ocean issues should avoid the language of crisis. Such language actually triggers people’s sense of fatalism, leading them to feel that little can be done to reverse existing damage or

prevent future deterioration Instead, communicators should emphasise that although the need for action is urgent, practical solutions are possible. They should also provide examples of success. For example, instead of starting a press release with ‘A new report launched today highlights that the population size of marine vertebrates has nearly halved since 1970. The overwhelming conclusion is that our ocean is in crisis …’ the FrameWorks Institute recommends ‘A new report launched today highlights the important actions we can take right now to protect the ocean. Increasing marine protected areas, restricting fishing areas and reducing fossil fuel emissions will restore fishing populations and limit ocean warming.’ Organisations need to counter a sense of powerlessness about the sea by focusing less on individual action and more on how collective action works, and how policy change is needed. Although calls for individual behaviour change are important, activists need to ensure that it is linked to a bigger picture.

Help people understand that systemic action brings change We need to help people understand what governments and other institutions can do, by providing examples of specific actions which will help protect the ocean and its ecosystems. Explaining solutions targeted at changing the system – rather than heroic individual action – helps people to see that concrete and practical steps to preserve the ocean are possible. One example demonstrating how individual action links with collective action to have a positive impact is recent campaigning on single-use plastic water bottles. A World Economic Forum report has estimated that by the year 2050 there

G E T T I N G B E LO W T H E S U R FAC E

Explain how ocean sustains life and wellness Communicators also need to talk about humans’ economic relationship with the ocean in a different way, says the FrameWorks Institute report. It is tempting to appeal to people by arguing that the ocean is valuable because it provides resources for human use. But setting up these frames of economics and consumption may make the short-term benefits of taking from the ocean appear clearer than longer-term harms. Rather than emphasising the parts that are available for consumption, it is better to convey that the ocean sustains human life and wellness. All parts of the ocean are critical to doing that, says the FrameWorks Institute – not just those that create economic benefits for humans. Equally, it is important to highlight that marine conservation and human prosperity are totally compatible, and to offer examples of how marine conservation can contribute to economic advancement. For example, communicators can show how jobs and scientific advancements have accompanied efforts to protect ocean systems. The public needs specifics. It needs to feel empowered, not hopeless. It needs to be helped to understand the issues and to engage with the interconnectedness of all

life systems with the sea. And it needs to be shown how all those individually threatened species that people are aware of – the penguins, the dolphins, the birds strangled by plastic bags – fit into a bigger picture of ecosystems where disruption has wide consequence for all of us.

Putting the research into practice These are valuable findings – not just for ocean conservation organisations but for everyone who values the sea and wants to engage others in preserving it. We at the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation UK are determined that the findings will be of practical use to government and a wide range of organisations. We have already discussed the report with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and there’s interest in the implications for government communications. We are now commissioning a second piece of research looking in more detail at effective ways of framing messages about the ocean. The end result may be a stronger collective voice among those who are trying to influence the public and politicians. It’s about building on our shared national values and understanding of the ocean, connecting with all of us – whether we’re holidaymakers, fishermen, sailors, environmentalists or politicians – in a greater common understanding of why the ocean matters and what we can do to protect it. n The full Getting Below the Surface report is available online at https:// gulbenkian.pt/uk-branch/wp-content/ uploads/sites/18/2017/03/Getting-BelowThe-Surface.pdf

Thomas Shellfish Ltd

will be more plastics in the ocean than fish. The #OneLess campaign, spearheaded by the Marine CoLABoration group we established in 2015 and hosted by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), revolves around collective individual action, encouraging people and businesses in London to stop using singleuse plastic water bottles. Launched in 2016, it connected the capital with the ocean, demonstrating how small individual actions at every location could have wider and positive impact on earth systems.

Maureen Harvey / Porlock Bay Shellfish

A community-based sustainable shellfish farming project in Porlock, a village on the coast of the Exmoor National Park.

Rope-grown mussels in South Wales. This is a sustainable farming method.

It is better to convey that the ocean sustains human life and wellness

can the ocean recover?

| Marine reserves

Improving the health of the ocean Simon Reddy and Johnny Briggs of the Pew Trusts stress the importance of marine reserves that are both large and highly protected

The conservation imperative Scientists say that one effective way to slow the oceans’ decline is to establish and enforce highly protected marine reserves, in which fishing and all extractive industries

are banned. By conserving and enhancing biodiversity, such reserves help the ocean provide the benefits people have come to rely on – including a steady supply of fish, which is critical for communities around the world but especially for traditional cultures closely linked to the sea. The evidence also increasingly shows that marine reserves help ocean ecosystems build resilience against the impacts of climate change or increases in temperature. Because individual countries have control over natural resources to a distance of 200 nautical miles from their coast, governments have the right to designate marine reserves in these waters. Yet despite the scientific evidence supporting the benefits of marine reserves, governments around the world have been slow to protect ocean areas, and the designation of large marine reserves is playing catch-up with conservation on land. While approximately 15 per cent of the MPAtlas.Org / Marine Conservation Institute. CC-AS-A4.0Int.

The designation of large marine areas is playing catch-up with conservation on land

ife on Earth depends upon the ocean, which provides half the oxygen we breathe and is the primary source of animal protein for more than 2 billion people. But those benefits are in jeopardy. Overfishing has pushed 90 per cent of the world’s fish stocks to fully exploited or overexploited status. The populations of some large predatory species in the ocean – sharks, tuna, swordfish, marlin, grouper, cod and halibut, for example – have been reduced to just 10 per cent of historic levels. Meanwhile, warming seas have driven some species toward the high latitudes, where they now compete with native fauna for food.

I M P R O V I N G T H E H E A LT H O F T H E O C E A N

Good news from the UK Now for the good news. More of the ocean has been protected in the past two years than during any other period in history, continuing a trend started more than a decade ago. The Pew Trusts has played a key role in these advancements. From 2006 through 2016, Pew and its partners helped secure commitments to protect 6.3 million square kilometres of ocean – an area 26 times the size of the United Kingdom. To build on this momentum, Pew and the Bertarelli Foundation have forged a new

partnership – the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project – with the goal of increasing the number of large and fully protected parks in the sea. The UK, with its 14 overseas territories, is responsible for the fifth-largest area of ocean in the world – 6.8 million square kilometres, which is 30 times the size of the UK’s land area. As a nation, the UK has been an international leader in ocean conservation, having promised to protect over 60 per cent of its waters by 2020 and designate a significant portion of that territory as highly protected marine reserves. The UK’s waters feature the largest coral atoll in the world, a third of the world’s albatrosses, and a quarter of the world’s penguins – more than any other country.

Johnny Briggs / The Pew Trusts

global land area is protected, only 3 per cent of the ocean is safeguarded, and in roughly half of that area commercial fishing is still allowed. Although some governments have committed to creating new reserves and the United Nations has set a Sustainable Development Goal for safeguarding 10 per cent of the ocean by 2020, more action is needed. The scientific community recommends that 30 per cent of the seas must be protected to support ecosystem recovery and sustainable fisheries into the future, a goal adopted by IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) in 2016. A crucial barrier to securing protection for 30 per cent of our oceans is that twothirds of the ocean lies in areas beyond national jurisdiction, the high seas. To set aside as reserves even small areas of the high seas would require international agreement, which has proven difficult to achieve – although the UN is making progress on a treaty that could lead to the creation of high seas reserves. A final factor that has limited ocean protections is the misconception that large, isolated marine reserves cannot be adequately monitored and enforced.

Johnny Briggs / The Pew Trusts

Adamstown, Pitcairn – the island’s capital and only settlement .

Old lifeboats at the Adamstown landing.

Pitcairn: showing the way The long-term UK pledge to create marine reserves, in partnership with the communities of its overseas territories, is part of the government’s Blue Belt policy commitment and builds on the September 2016 designation of the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve. The Pitcairn initiative, on which Pew worked, exemplifies how community will, cuttingedge technology, and central government leadership can coalesce to deliver a significant conservation win. The only UK overseas territory in the Pacific Ocean, the Pitcairn archipelago consists of four islands. Its 40 residents all live on the eponymous main island. Most of these

The UN is making progress on a treaty that could lead to the creation of high seas reserves

I M P R O V I N G T H E H E A LT H O F T H E O C E A N

Johnny Briggs / The Pew Trusts

A wandering albatross, Pitcairn island.

islanders descend from the mutineers who seized control of HMS Bounty in 1790. The archipelago’s key characteristic is its isolation: it sits approximately 2000 kilometres from the nearest significant urban centre, Tahiti. As a result, almost no commercial fishing activity has occurred in the surrounding waters, leaving Pitcairn’s marine environment nearly pristine, with a unique ecosystem harbouring endemic birds, turtles, and whales, and the world’s deepest known living plant, a species of coralline algae found 382 metres below the sea’s surface. But with advances in vessel technology now allowing crews to reach every square kilometre of the ocean, and with local residents dependent on fish from coastal waters for a significant part of their diet, the Pitcairn Island Council partnered with Pew in 2011 to advocate for the closure of Pitcairn Island’s Johnny Briggs / The Pew Trusts

Pitcairn’s key characteristic is its isolation … almost no commercial fishing has occurred

Another view of Adamstown and the South Pacific.

Pitcairn wildlife: (left) a Natal lightfoot crab and (below) a green turtle.

Johnny Briggs / The Pew Trusts

waters to all extractive activity from 12 to 200 nautical miles offshore – an area of about 830,000 square kilometres, or roughly 3.5 times the size of the UK.

Rising to the global challenge In 2015, the UK government tentatively agreed to the closure but wanted assurance that the massive, isolated area could be effectively monitored and enforced. As our colleague Peter Horn explains (see ‘Illegal, Unreported, Unregulated’, page 7), illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing is a global challenge. But a comprehensive solution of policy, technology, markets, and leadership is turning the tide on this issue. In the case of Pitcairn, the Pew Trusts, in partnership with the UK government, undertook a one-year surveillance trial using satellites to monitor the waters of the Pitcairn Islands Marine Reserve. That trial confirmed that the technological platform Eyes on the Seas can be used to effectively monitor and enforce a large, remote marine reserve. Over the coming years, the UK government has the opportunity to maintain its position of global leadership by designating large, highly protected marine reserves in the waters of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, Ascension Island, and Tristan da Cunha. n Simon Reddy directs the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project’s work in the UK overseas territories, and Johnny Briggs is an officer with the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy Project, working to create large, highly protected marine reserves in the waters of the UK overseas territories.

can the ocean recover?

| The blue economy and technology

Sea vision: maritime situational awareness Rear Admiral Nick Lambert explores the exciting possibilities offered by rapidly developing technology Until we get hold of a group of physical facts, we do not know what practical bearings they may have, though right-minded men know that they contain many precious jewels, which science, or the expert hand of philosophy will not fail to bring out, polished, and bright, and beautifully adapted to man’s purposes. — Matthew Fontaine Maury, 1855

tand in the City of London and mention ‘maritime’ to passers-by, and most will think of ships, shipping, shipbuilding, maybe the multifaceted hugely complex business of moving global trade by sea, and perhaps the great London-based maritime institutions such as Lloyd’s, P&I clubs, the International Chamber of Shipping, or the International Maritime Organization. On further thought they might mention fishing and offshore oil and gas – but it will take more effort to broaden discussion to the concept of the ‘blue economy’, embracing aquaculture and fish farming, seabed mining, offshore renewable energy, cruise ships, tourism and recreation, marine biopharmaceuticals and, of course, the importance of the marine environment, the resources it contains and the impact of human activities upon it. Yet within a few dozen miles of London are Southampton on the English Channel and Felixstowe on the North Sea, two of the world’s most complex, intensely utilised sea basins, vital to the UK’s economy over several centuries and arguably forming the world’s foremost international thoroughfare. Both basins host many of those blue economy sectors, especially offshore renewables and the UK’s aquaculture sector, which generates £1.8 billion annually for the Scottish economy. The economic exploitation of these sea basins epitomises the importance of the world’s seas and oceans for the global economy, as it is the natural capital of the marine environment that will provide the resources, energy, protein and expansion space for the predicted 2-billion growth in the human population by 2050.

The wealth of the oceans It is all too easy to underestimate the value of our seas and oceans and their importance for national and global blue economies. The EU estimates a European blue economy worth €600 billion and 7 million jobs by 2020, Ireland’s Harnessing Our Ocean Wealth strategy postulated the global blue economy as being worth €1.5 trillion, and a 2015 World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) report, Reviving the Ocean Economy, described the ocean as ‘the $24 trillion asset we’re neglecting’. WWF drew attention to the enormous wealth of the seas and oceans in the form of goods and services from primary resources, fisheries, coastal protection and mangrove swamps through to heat sinks and carbon sequestration, all essential to the prosperity of billions of people. All such analyses reflect on the impact of climate change and the seemingly unwitting damage that we humans do to our oceans – yet still our scientists reiterate that we know enough to worry about the state of the global marine environment but not enough to know just how worried we should be. At the nub of the problem lies a fundamental lack of data, maps and charts and therefore knowledge of the seas and oceans: vast areas in shallow, continental waters (the complex sea basins supporting the blue economies and blue jobs) need to be surveyed to modern standards,

Matthew Fontaine Maury (1806–1873) was the first Hydrographer of the United States Navy. His book The Physical Geography of the Sea was published in 1855.

It is all too easy to underestimate the value of our seas and oceans Where data and mapping were once lacking, satellite-based systems now provide detailed information about the ocean and the uses we make of it. Here a screen reports the identity, registration, course, cargo and destination of each vessel shown.

S E A V I S I O N : M A R I T I M E S I T UAT I O N A L AWA R E N E S S

Satellite-based monitoring systems are proving to be a powerful tool in combating unlawful fishing, smuggling, piracy and other crime at sea. Here, alerted by a vessel’s unexpected and suspicious changes of course and the activity of small craft, a system picks up a pirate attack on a merchant ship off the coast of Nigeria.

Satellitederived data sources such as optical imagery and syntheticaperture radar (SAR) are exponentially improving in performance

while even greater areas at significant depth are to all intents and purposes unknown, as epitomised by our inability to resolve the tragic loss of Malaysia Airlines Flight 370 in 2014.

Today’s plethora of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS) has, to a large extent, replaced the art of navigation. Position and timing are instant, virtually all seagoing systems have a GNSS input of some kind, and centimetric locational accuracy is available to all. GNSS spawned many other innovations, of which the Automatic Identification System (AIS) is, of course, the game changer.

Overcoming ‘sea blindness’

AIS is just the beginning

That dearth of knowledge is compounded by a widespread indifference to and ignorance of the marine environment and the industries that derive from the sea. For most of my naval career, senior colleagues bemoaned the curse of ‘sea blindness’, a perception that increased in volume around the time of government reviews of defence and the inevitable scrutiny of naval budgets and resources. We thought ourselves to be ‘out of sight, out of mind’, with few of the general public aware of or caring about the value of our service and our contribution to national wellbeing. And, indeed, it was challenging to build a picture of what was happening in our vicinity. Using radars, helicopters and good old binoculars we would persistently monitor fishing vessels and merchant ships, differentiating between oil rigs, crossing ferries, fishing fleets and yachts and sharing our picture with other ships in the task group. Building a ‘white picture’ of routine shipping activity over a relatively modest area required constant, 24/7 dedicated monitoring of a plethora of data sources, bowling out conflicting tracks and resolving identities. It is here that space and satellites are making the difference to maritime situational awareness. The Global Positioning System (GPS) was the start, transforming conventional position navigation and time technologies and techniques almost overnight.

Originally conceived by mariners for mariners to improve safety by providing enhanced situational awareness in busy seaways, AIS (and now satellite AIS, S-AIS) is at the core of my contention that we are on the cusp of ‘sea vision’, an epoch when we will know everything we need to know about human activity and maritime operations of all kinds in complex sea basins such as the Mediterranean, the South China Sea, the Gulf of Mexico, the North Sea and many, many more. But AIS is not the end of the story, because satellite-derived data sources such as optical imagery and synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) are exponentially improving in performance, offering corroborating information about maritime operations from space. Rapidly improving satellite communications services allied with a bonanza of smallsats (miniature satellites deployed in low earth orbit, often called cubesats) herald cheap, ubiquitous global constellations providing near total coverage of the earth’s terrestrial and marine environments. Utilising off-the-shelf components and benefiting from the evolution of technologies such as tuneable ‘metamaterials’ (synthetic materials engineered to have electromagnetic and other characteristics not found in nature), these constellations will be regularly updated with the latest capabilities, further enhancing global coverage and data resolution. The phenomenon of artificial intelligence

S E A V I S I O N : M A R I T I M E S I T UAT I O N A L AWA R E N E S S

ExactEarth’s Iridium NEXT satellite.

and our ever-improving ability to process big data enable the fusion of these spacederived sources with extant ground truthing information such as terrestrial coastal radar, in-situ sensors and archive datasets including electronic navigation charts, vessel registers, crew manifests to provide a comprehensive, reliable, near real-time picture of human activities on our seas and oceans. Not to be forgotten is the fact that satellites, especially those providing GNSS and communications services, are fuelling the remarkable growth in marine autonomous systems (MAS). Expect to see one in a sea space near you shortly – MAS of all kinds (air, surface and sub-surface) are being built by a plethora of imaginative small businesses in the UK, Europe and the USA, promising to transform our knowledge of the marine environment. Importantly, these data sources are no longer the exclusive preserve of governments and the military, or maritime and marine professionals; they are increasingly commonly available to the previously seablind public on their mobile devices via a range of paid and free services.

Sea vision for an expanding blue economy This rapidly growing phenomenon of sea vision has direct implications for all of us. It addresses the human need for a geographical presentation of information – a map, chart or geographic information system (GIS) solution that immediately informs the operator and enables accurate decision making – Maury’s ‘practical bearings’ and ‘precious jewels … beautifully adapted to man’s purposes’. Many companies are seizing the opportunity to provide better connectivity services at sea, to improve situational awareness, to develop more efficient global logistics chains by tracking ships and goods, to counter

activities such as illegal fishing and smuggling of drugs, weapons and people, and to exploit the marine environment in an economically viable, environmentally sustainable manner. The growth of the blue economy is already at the heart of the economic policies of many island states such as Ireland, the Seychelles and Mauritius, and other countries are following suit. Such polices will direct funding to modern surveys of the seas and oceans as states will want to audit the resources in their exclusive economic zones and to oversee their extraction. Situational awareness will enable that aspiration, resulting in effective legislation and governance of hitherto ungovernable sea spaces that ultimately will improve our knowledge of the marine environment and our ability to manage it. This is an exciting time: sea vision is here and happening, there will be few places to hide, the concept of the High Seas will become anachronistic, and we will become empowered custodians of our global oceans, administering them in a much more sensible way for the benefit of the environment and humanity. n After a 36-year career in the Royal Navy, Rear Admiral Nick Lambert now offers his expertise as a consultant in the ‘blue economy’. He is the Maritime Domain Expert for the Satellite Applications Catapult, an independent company created to foster growth across the UK economy through the exploitation of space.

The same systems that track shipping can be used for environmental monitoring. Here the screen shows fish habitat conservation areas and other environmental refuges near the busy Strait of Juan de Fuca, on the Pacific coast of Canada and the United States.

The growth of the blue economy is already at the heart of the economic policies of many island states

can the ocean recover?

| Sky Ocean Rescue

The plastic tide Thomas Moore, Science Correspondent, Sky News, asks what can be done to stem the tide of plastic that is threatening to overwhelm the world’s oceans

Islands off the south west coast of Norway where the Cuvier’s beaked whale died.

lmost 80 degrees north, 1200 kilometres from the nearest significant human settlement, and there’s a flip-flop floating in the sea. Nearby, tangled up in a raft of kelp, there’s a chocolate wrapper, the lid from a plastic bottle and

currents. The madness is that much of that plastic has been used just once, perhaps for a few minutes or even, in the case of a coffee stirrer, for just a few seconds. Yet in the ocean the plastic is likely to take decades or centuries to break down and disappear. That’s why we launched Sky Ocean Rescue at the start of 2017. We wanted to sound the alarm over what was happening to our seas.

Norway is at the mercy of currents that wash up rubbish from across Europe.

Sky News

The debris of modern life is now found in every ocean

the remains of a shredded nylon fishing net. We’re filming on the northern tip of Spitsbergen, close enough to the majestic Smeerenburg glacier for our RIB to be rocked by the waves raised by the calving ice crashing into the water. This shouldn’t be the place to find plastic. But the debris of modern life is now found in every ocean – more than five trillion pieces are being swept around the globe by the

There are so many threats: climate change is making the water warmer and more acidic, fishing stocks are dwindling and chemical runoff from land is building up in the food chain. All are important. But judging from the response to the campaign, the public really understands the plastic problem. A shopping bag floating on the surface is easily identifiable as household rubbish. And it’s there because of somebody’s carelessness. We are all part of the problem, but we are also part of the solution. Sky News

Sky News

Highlighting the issue

Sky News

THE PLASTIC TIDE

Governments can also drive change In Norway a small deposit on plastic bottles, which is returned when people bring back their empties to the shop, has resulted in 96 per cent being recycled. Contrast that with the UK where every day 16 million bottles – almost half of all those sold – are dumped in landfill, or littered on land or at sea. At Sky News we have produced two documentaries and regular news reports from around the globe highlighting the issue. This has been backed by initiatives by other parts of the Sky family. At the Oval’s 100th test match we handed out refillable bottles and installed water coolers, reducing the number of singleuse bottles consumed by 60 per cent.

A plastic whale Filming for A Plastic Whale, the second of our campaign documentaries, really opened our eyes to the magnitude of the problem. We followed the story of a beaked whale that died in Bergen, Norway, with 30 bags and plastic fragments in its stomach. There was barely any room left for food. This was a species that fed a mile below the waves. That’s where scientists believe the whale encountered the bags, suspended in the water column. In the

darkness it simply confused the bags for food. The whale underlined how plastic is now found from the sea surface to the sea bed, and how it’s harming marine creatures. Our campaign hasn’t been all doom and gloom, though. The death of the whale sparked an extraordinary response in Norway. The country is a victim of geography – the Gulf Stream deposits large amounts of plastic on its 100,000-kilometre coastline. At first it was a handful of people from Bergen who began cleaning the local bays to stop the debris being washed back out on the tide and consumed by marine wildlife. But the clean-up has become a mass movement, stretching the length of the country, with the government stumping up millions of kroner to fund heavylift helicopters and boats to remove plastic from remote areas. Sky News

We are campaigning for a rethink on single-use plastic. Small changes in our lifestyles – giving up plastic straws, for example – all make a difference. Manufacturers have a responsibility too. Does a cotton bud have to have a plastic stalk, for example? We filmed hundreds of the little blue tubes that had slipped through the sewage system and washed up on the banks of the River Thames. How many others ended up in the North Sea to become fish food?

Sky News

Local activist Kenneth Bruvik shows me the layers of plastic buried under the soil.

30 plastic bags were found inside the whale’s stomach.

Rare pictures of beaked whales off the Canary Islands, similar to the one which died in Norway.

THE PLASTIC TIDE

Another worldwide source of plastics in the oceans – ‘Ghost fishing gear’ – an abandoned trammel net on the seabed off the Atlantic coast of Spain.

Norway has good reason to be concerned. Farmed salmon is one of its biggest exports, and it cannot afford for the fish to be seen by consumers as contaminated by plastic. It’s a justified concern. Tiny particles called microplastics are already in our food chain. In Belgium, scientists showed us an x-ray CT scan of a mussel that clearly showed microplastics in its body tissues. The average portion of moules marinière contains 90 tiny pieces of plastic, they say. And because plastic is accumulating in the oceans – and filtered by mussels and other shellfish – calculations suggest that by the end of the century people who regularly eat seafood could be consuming 780,000 pieces of plastic a year, absorbing up to 4000 fragments into their body tissues with unknown consequences for their health. We’ve had extraordinary engagement from our viewers. Some are concerned about health, others about wildlife. One short video – again of the plastic whale – was viewed by 25 million people on Facebook in just one

week. A viewer in Preston was motivated by the campaign to gather a group to go to Norway to help with the clean-up. Another, in Scotland, was inspired to remove plastic from his local beaches.

Political and industrial responses The campaign is having a wider impact too. Members of Parliament on the Environmental Audit Committee have launched an enquiry into single-use plastics. Its chair, Mary Creagh, and the oceans minister, Therese Coffey, have both taken part in campaign events. Industry, too, is responding. The Scottish government has recently announced a deposit return scheme for bottles and cans. A major stumbling block had been opposition from Coca-Cola, the biggest soft-drink manufacturer. But it has now done a U-turn, and campaigners who have been lobbying the company for many years say pressure from Sky Ocean Rescue was instrumental in prompting the rethink.

Keeping up the pressure

By the end of the century, people who regularly eat seafood could be consuming 780,000 pieces of plastic a year

Sky News

Toothed whales such as sperm whales, which feed deep in the ocean off Northern Norway, may be susceptible to ingesting plastic.

The campaign is far from over. An upcoming documentary will look at our poor record on recycling. There will be more initiatives to raise awareness. And we’ll keep up the pressure on government and industry. We can’t ignore the plastic problem. Estimates suggest that 8–12 million tonnes of plastic end up in the ocean every year – that’s the equivalent of a rubbish truck of the stuff being dumped into the sea every minute. It’s just not sustainable. We all need to act. n For further information on the Sky Ocean Rescue campaign, visit https://skyoceanrescue.com

can the ocean recover?

| Polar and marine research

Pole position: science at sea Linda Capper mbe discovers how Britain’s new polar research ship will help us make sense of our changing world

It was back in 2014 that George Osborne, Chancellor of the Exchequer, announced a £200 million investment to replace the UK’s two ageing polar research ships with a state-of-the-art platform to keep Britain at the forefront of polar science. Commissioned by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), built in Birkenhead at the world-famous Cammell Laird shipyard, and operated by the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), this ship will transform how science in the polar regions is supported. Professor Dame Jane Francis is Director of BAS. She sees the commission of this ship as an exciting time for UK polar science and recognises that the investment from government and NERC is a strong signal of their commitment to sustaining and promoting the UK’s world-leading capability for polar research. She says: ‘The last 15–20 years have seen remarkable developments in ship-borne science and technology. Incorporating innovative technologies in a new icestrengthened research ship will offer a step change in Britain’s capability to deliver bigger and better science. It is fantastic news for our science teams at BAS, for NERC and for

our partners within UK universities – and for our international research collaborations.’

Making sense of our changing world The vast, ice-covered polar regions are a major component of the earth’s global climate system. The high contrast in reflective properties of white, ice-covered areas and surrounding dark sea surface plays an important role in regulating regional and global climate. The extremely cold and salty waters around Antarctica sink deep into the ocean, driving a conveyor belt of oceanic heat around the globe. The Southern Ocean is very effective at absorbing the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as a result of ocean mixing caused by strong westerly winds around the continent. But, because of its remoteness and inhospitable nature, the Southern Ocean has the sparsest data coverage of any of the world’s oceans. The data gap is regularly singled out as a weak point in computer models used to simulate future climate change. We can, however, be optimistic about closing this gap. Recent technological advances mean

An artist’s impression of the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Sir David Attenborough at the new polar research ship keel laying. Mills Media/Cammell Laird

Transforming the UK’s polar research capability

British Antarctic Survey/Rolls-Royce

hen she takes to the seas in 2019 the RRS Sir David Attenborough will usher in the next generation of polar and marine research. With its advanced technologies, this new polar ship will enable scientific investigations that are pivotal to understanding the role the oceans play in influencing regional and global climate change, marine biodiversity, and sustainable management of the Southern Ocean ecosystem.

The Southern Ocean has the sparsest data coverage of any of the world’s oceans

P O L E P O S I T I O N : S C I E N C E AT S E A

British Antarctic Survey

‘Pancake ice’ forming as the sea begins to freeze off Signey Island in the South Orney Islands, Antarctica.

Underwater vehicles, capable of travelling without direct control from the ship, collect data from locations that may be dangerous or impossible for humans

that scientists can now combine ship-based observations with high-quality data from inaccessible areas. Jane Francis adds: ‘Understanding the polar oceans is absolutely key to understanding the big questions about our global environment. Over decades our ship-borne studies have shed new light on the consequences of the shrinking sea ice for ocean circulation, climate and the ecosystem. ‘Surveys of the deep ocean have yielded vital discoveries about marine biodiversity and informed an international census of marine life. Long-term studies have helped understand the marine food chain, and have proven to be critical for sustainable management of commercial fisheries. We are advancing our understanding, but there continues to be an urgent need for more detailed investigations if we want to provide the insight required to help people live with, and adapt to, environmental change.’

Intelligent instruments and marine robotics During its polar missions RRS Sir David Attenborough will take advantage of UK marine robotics capability through deployment of a new generation of autonomous and remotely operated vehicles. Satellite links will transmit mission instructions and capture data when these vehicles are at the ocean surface. Ocean gliders and submersible vehicles are being developed to enable scientists to access real-time data efficiently, which optimises use of time and research resources. Data from these deployments will shed new light on what happens when ocean water melts

Antarctic ice shelves, and how this may influence future sea-level rise. Clever technology controls the ocean gliders. Instead of using a conventional propeller, these smart vehicles ‘fly’ though the ocean using an expandable oil-filled bladder to change their buoyancy. As liquid is pumped into or out of the bladder, the volume of the glider changes while its mass remains the same. As a result, its density changes and allows the device to rise or sink through the water. Its wings turn this vertical motion into forwards motion. Underwater vehicles, capable of travelling without direct control from the ship, are equipped with sensors to collect data from locations that may be dangerous or impossible for humans. Pre-programmed to travel underneath floating ice shelves, and at the calving fronts of glaciers, these vehicles have the potential to aid investigations of the rapid ice-mass loss in the Amundsen Sea, one of Antarctica’s fastest-shrinking areas. The now famous Autosub Long Range (ALR) known as Boaty McBoatface was developed by the National Oceanography Centre. Fitted with the latest oceanographic sensors, battery technology and advanced satellite communications, the ALR is programmed with route instructions, what to measure, and what depths to go to.

Advanced engineering and technology Polar marine engineers together with scientists from BAS and UK universities were deeply involved in the design brief for the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Rolls Royce are supplying the new ship with four main engines, two nine-cylinder and two six-cylinder models of the same family. This configuration of different engine sizes allows for efficient operation across the wide range of

P O L E P O S I T I O N : S C I E N C E AT S E A

On-board innovation The wonderfully named scientific moon pool – a 4 m × 4 m vertical shaft running through the ship and open to both the air (at deck level) and the sea (at the hull) – enables scientists to safely deploy and retrieve oceanographic instruments in the rough seas that are so characteristic of the polar oceans. Echo sounding, technology that has been used in shipboard navigation for decades to determine water depth, will be used by marine geologists to find out more about the topography of the seafloor. A multi-beam echo sounder will send out hundreds of acoustic pulses at different angles, creating a swath of information on water depth as the ship passes. Swaths of data are used to create maps to identify the best sub-sea locations for taking sediment cores for studies looking at how ancient glaciers moved over the coastal areas off Antarctica and the Arctic.

Environmental credentials RRS Sir David Attenborough is designed to conform to stringent environmental regulations that are part of the International Maritime Organization’s (IMO) Polar Code. This is the main international convention to prevent the pollution of the marine environment by ships, whether by accident or during routine operations. An on-board ballast water system, fitted with an approved treatment plant, and a

‘Green Passport’ feature in the application of the IMO guidelines.

It’s all in a name In May 2016, following a public poll, the Universities and Science Minister Jo Johnson selected RRS Sir David Attenborough as the name of the new ship. It is an excellent choice. During his long career, the renowned naturalist and broadcaster has engaged people throughout the world in the wonder of the Arctic and the Antarctic. Landmark television series such as Life in the Freezer and Frozen Planet brought the importance of the polar regions sharply into focus for many of us. The new ship will carry his name for decades, as it fulfils its mission to make new discoveries that will change how we view our world. In October 2017 Sir David started the ‘keel laying’ process by initiating the lift of the first of 97 hull units onto the construction berth. He relished the opportunity to be part of this exciting construction milestone, saying: ‘The polar regions are not only critical for understanding the natural world but they also have an enormous appeal for journalists, broadcasters and the public. I have had several opportunities to experience the power of these places first hand. This new ship will ensure that scientists have access to these enigmatic regions to uncover secrets that we can only imagine at this point. Scientists working on this new ship will inform everyone about our changing world for generations to come.’ n Find out more about this new ship at www.bas.ac.uk/attenborough . Linda Capper has visited Antarctica nine times and has travelled on polar research ships.

Uwe Kil/CCASA3.0Unpo.

conditions that the ship is likely to encounter. As well as the requirements for powerful engines for navigation through ice, there is a scientific need for engines to run as silently as possible, and to avoid sweep-down of bubbles around the hull that could interfere with acoustic sensors. Extremely low underwater radiated noise is essential to avoid interference with survey equipment, and to minimise disturbance to marine mammals or fish distribution.

British Antarctic Survey / Mike Meredith

An ocean glider being deployed in Antarctica.

Antarctic krill, a critical species in the Antarctic ecosystem, and one of the most numerically abundant species on the planet.

Understanding the polar oceans is absolutely key to understanding the big questions about our global environment

can the ocean recover?

| A global bathymetric database

Mapping the deep ocean floor David Mearns, marine scientist, oceanographer and explorer, surveys the urgent need to discover more about the largest part of our planet

Pioneering technology On 10 April 1963, the US nuclear submarine Thresher (SSN 593) sank in the North Atlantic while conducting deep diving tests. Thresher was the first, and worst, instance of a nuclear submarine loss at sea, with all 129 of the boat’s crew killed. The magnitude of the loss was such a shock to the US Navy that a plan was literally developed overnight to find the Thresher. Before then the deepest shipwreck found was less than 450 metres and the method of searching comparatively primitive, based PD

After Titanic, the deep ocean was no longer the hidden and unreachable realm that most people assumed

henever I am asked about the influences on my career as a shipwreck hunter I credit the 1985 discovery of Titanic by Bob Ballard for ushering in a new age of deep ocean exploration that paved the way for other famous shipwrecks to be found. In the eyes of most people, including me, Titanic still occupies the top spot as the most famous of all shipwrecks. However, long before Titanic was found, a group of scientists and engineers from the US Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) quietly set about conducting a mission of national importance that truly opened the doors to the deep ocean for the first time. Sadly, it was another catastrophic loss that instigated NRL’s ground-breaking mission.

Two ill-fated nuclear submarines: (above) USS Thresher and (right) the Soviet K-129. The US operations to locate both wrecks at depths, respectively, of 2560 and 5030 metres, paved the way for later deep ocean wreck searches.

on dangling a man within a sealed observation chamber fitted with viewports. Thresher’s depth of 2560 metres necessitated an entirely new towed, multi-sensor approach to searching – and from this tragedy the United States’ deep ocean search capability was born. Because most of NRL’s missions using the search ship Mizar were classified, the world knows very little about what they achieved and the record depths they reached. NRL’s pioneering development of deep tow technology, photographic techniques and search methodology in the 1960s and early 1970s provided the foundation for Ballard’s success in the 1980s. Ballard continued to rely on the same type of photographic search systems pioneered by NRL, and the experience he gained from his own surveys of the Thresher and Scorpion (another US nuclear submarine found by NRL in 1968) wreck sites helped him refine the search for Titanic. Although Ballard’s method of finding Titanic was not very different from how NRL located the Thresher 22 years earlier, the worldwide interest generated by Titanic’s name created a game-changing moment in history. Suddenly, the entire world knew that the deep ocean was accessible, without ever realising that the greatest ocean depths had been conquered more than two decades earlier.

No longer hidden and unreachable The discovery of Titanic was a watershed moment without which my own discoveries of Lucona, Derbyshire and Hood might not have happened. The companies I worked with to find those wrecks employed more modern and more efficient sonar-based search systems, but the breakthrough from NRL’s early age of deep ocean shipwreck hunting had less to do with technology and was more about an awakening and a realisation of what was possible. After Titanic, the deep ocean was no

MAPPING THE DEEP OCEAN FLOOR

A deep ocean squat lobster next to a sea anemone, on the floor of the Indian Ocean at a depth of over 2500 metres. Photographed by the author during the search for the wreck of the Australian WWII light-cruiser, HMAS Sydney.

Research priorities There is, however, a much broader need for these technologies beyond shipwreck hunting that, with further advancement and expansion, will have an impact on everyone’s lives. It is often said (because it is true) that we know more

A failed hatch cover of the British bulk carrier Derbyshire, sunk in 1980 off Okinawa, Japan, during a Typhoon causing the deaths of all 44 persons on board.

about the surface of the moon than we do about the surface of our own planet. That’s because 71 per cent of the earth is covered by the oceans, and the seabed that is hidden below this watery curtain has barely been surveyed or explored. Current estimates are that only 10–15 per cent of the ocean floor is mapped to a resolution of 100 metres. Compare that to 98 per cent of Venus, 100 per cent of the moon (at higher resolution), and 100 per cent of Mars (with much of it at 20-metre resolution), and you start to get the full picture. In a future where the world’s population will be increasingly dependent on the oceans – the water and the seabed and everything in between – we can no longer afford to live in ignorance about the largest part of our planet. There are many aspects of the oceans that need to be measured and understood on a global scale, but experts agree that mapping the ocean floor should be a priority. In the David Mearns

longer the hidden and unreachable realm that most people assumed. It didn’t matter that NRL had found and filmed a wreck at 5010 metres in 1970 (the LeBaron Russell Briggs) or that a top-secret CIA project recovered parts of a Soviet ballistic missile submarine (K-129) from a depth of 5030 metres in 1974. Because these record-setting achievements were shrouded in government secrecy, it was as if they had never happened – and thus their impact beyond the super-secret world of the US Navy was virtually non-existent. I’ve been incredibly fortunate that the arc of my career has coincided with a period in history when technology has caught up with mankind’s ambition to explore the deep ocean with greater precision and capability. Having cut my teeth on one of the earliest commercially available side-scan sonar systems, when image interpretation was considered an art more than a science, I am grateful to have endured long enough to see my industry grow by leaps and bounds into the mature state it is in today. New technologies that were at the very early prototype stage when I started out, such as autonomous underwater vehicles (AUV) and multi-beam echo-sounding sonars (MBES), are already proving their potential to completely revolutionise the gathering of data at sea.

David Mearns

Sonar image of the bow of a WWII merchant vessel destroyed by an aerial bomb.

Sonar image of the wreck of the Australian hospital ship Centaur, torpedoed by a Japanese submarine during the Second World War.

David Mearns

MAPPING THE DEEP OCEAN FLOOR

HRH The Princess Royal with the author and the ship’s bell of the battlecruiser HMS Hood, sunk in the North Atlantic in 1941. Having located the wreck, which has been declared a war grave by the British government, the author and his team were authorised to recover the bell, and it was returned to Portsmouth in 2015.

Mapping the ocean floor by the year 2030 is a bold but achievable objective, and a necessity

summer of 2016 a remarkable meeting took place in the Principality of Monaco, at which 150 senior representatives, scientists, scholars and business associates endorsed the objective of comprehensively mapping the ocean floor by the year 2030. It is a bold but achievable objective (called Seafloor 2030), and a necessity if we are to continue to exploit the oceans at the rate we are doing without damaging them any more than we already have. GEBCO (the General Bathymetric Chart of the Oceans), the world’s only international organisation with a mandate to map the ocean floor, will be responsible for compiling the data into a global bathymetric database A bathymetric visualisation of the with the ultimate objective Indian Ocean, from GEBCO. of sharing the data in order to ‘make the seafloor public’. AUVs and multi-beam sonars Indian Ocean will undoubtedly be at the forefront of that Bathymetry data reproduced from the GEBCO_2014 www.gebco.net data Grid, collection. Imagery for land areas is taken from NASA’s Blue Marble Next Generation data set (NASA’s Earth Observatory, http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/).

A challenge for ocean exploration

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/).

At that same meeting in Monaco another bold challenge was laid down. This was in the form

of a cash prize – a $7,000,000 XPRIZE to be exact. The prize, sponsored primarily by Shell with a $1,000,000 bonus prize offered by the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), challenges the competing teams to develop new innovative technologies to autonomously map the deep ocean floor in high resolution at rates faster than currently possible. The competition runs for two years, with up to 20 teams competing in two rounds of at-sea testing. It is hoped the end result will be to accelerate the innovation needed to bring forward the goal set by Seafloor 2030. As a marine scientist and explorer, I am honoured to have been selected by the XPRIZE scientific advisory board to serve as one of the judges for a competition that is so close to my heart. Some people choose their careers, but I like to think that my career chose me. It happened the moment I switched on an ancient EG&G 259-4 side-scan sonar recorder for the first time and watched the geology of the West Florida shelf being revealed as if the ocean had been drained of water. Thirty-five years later I still have that same heightened sense of expectation whenever I switch on a side-scan sonar, as my scientific training and curiosity draws me forward to the screen in the hope that I’m about to see some long-lost object or an interesting geological feature. Creating the global bathymetric database – the base map for 71 per cent of our planet – is the closest we will all come to that experience of draining the oceans of water and revealing what lies below. n

can the ocean recover?

| Reducing emissions from shipping

The shipping revolution is here Lars Carlsson, Director of Windship Technology, looks forward to a revolution that promises to be every bit as dramatic as the switch from sail to steam

Louis Mackay

hips made the Industrial Revolution possible, with cheap and efficient transport of goods, from mines to mills and from producer to consumer. And shipping was once, and could again become, by far the most economical and environmentally friendly mode of transport. But it is also true that the Paris Agreement to reduce harmful emissions by about 70 per cent has been signed by almost 200 states and numerous industrial giants – but not by the shipping industry, which produces a significantly high percentage of the world’s atmospheric pollution.

New marine legislation changes everything The International Maritime Organization (IMO) is responsible for the global regulation of the shipping industry. It has now, with assistance from the European Commission and support from shipping organisations, presented draft legislation to reduce the maximum sulphur content in bunker fuel from 3.5 to 0.5 per cent. This is a very important piece of shipping legislation, because sulphur in the atmosphere is causing premature deaths through respiratory illnesses estimated at over 70,000 a year in Europe alone, as well as being highly toxic to the environment as a whole. The new legislation will also eliminate other harmful substances emitted by ships’ engines, including greenhouse gases (GHG) and particulates. A much-quoted statistic is that the 15 largest container ships emit more harmful sulphur and nitrogen substances and particulate matter than all the cars in the

world. Another way of expressing it is that the shipping industry emits as much GHG as the whole of Germany – but, unlike Germany’s, ship emissions are expected to increase in the coming years as transport responds to a rise in global economic activity. The new IMO legislation is expected to be ratified by the middle of 2018, to come into force on 1 January 2020. It will effectively put a stop to this heavily criticised and harmful pollution, reducing GHG emissions from ships by the global reduction target of 70 per cent. In the interim, the IMO and the European Commission will be benchmarking the present fuel consumption of ships and consequently their emissions.

What will be the effect of the new legislation? To achieve the sulphur reduction, many ships will have to abandon heavy fuel oil and switch to clean marine gas oil (MGO). But this is like legislating that the food industry can use only the best parts of the slaughtered animal for food products: a quality improvement, but also a cost increase. It is estimated that 2 million barrels of fuel per day will have to be MGO instead of the residual oil extracted at the end of the refinery process. The bunker cost will increase dramatically. We may see 3–5 times higher fuel prices by 2020, and

Unprofitable, environmentally unfriendly excess shipping capacity: laid-up vessels at anchor off Skagen, Denmark, 2017.

Ships over 100 grt, 2015 92,000 vessels in total tonnage 1.75 bn DWT (Source UNCTAD 2015) Tankers

Bulk carriers

33.2 43.5

0.3

5.6 4.4

13.0

Container Passenger General Passenger

THE SHIPPING REVOLUTION IS HERE Land Rover

A reminder that wind-powered vessels can move faster than the wind itself. Sir Ben Ainslie and his crew fly their Land Rover catamaran on hydrofoils at the 2016 Louis Vuitton America’s Cup races in Portsmouth.

The Danish-built steel barque Viking, which, with other square riggers in the fleet of Finnish shipowner Gustaf Erikson, continued to sail commercially with grain and other ‘slow trade’ cargoes using the winds of southern latitudes as late as 1950. State Library of Victoria PD

the only way to mitigate this cost increase will be to reduce consumption. Shipping must also reduce its GHG emissions to be on par with all the efforts by the rest of the world, and it is much better for the shipping industry to act on its own initiative. If it fails to recognise the way the wind is blowing, the legislators could impose a regime far more onerous than if it selected the best methods itself. The key components of an emission reduction scheme could include: n permanent economical speed, with fuel consumption reduced – 30% saving n optimise the hull, rudder and propeller design for slow-speed operation – 10% saving n modern antifouling systems to prevent barnacle growth – 5% saving n modernise ship operation in cooperation with the charterers to avoid waiting for a berth, and instead slow steam for just-intime arrival – 5% saving

Wind is set to make a comeback. One only has to look at the technology that has been developed by the yachting industry

The power of the wind It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention, and in the longer term this fundamental step change will force the shipping industry to look to new technologies and explore alternative ship propulsion and fuel systems such as hydrogen and solar power.

This is all in the future and unproven, but there is nothing new about wind power – for it was the wind that drove ships for centuries, until the age of steam rendered it uneconomical in the latter part of the nineteenth century. Today, wind is set to make a comeback. One only has to look at the technology that has been developed by the yachting industry, where unheard-of speeds are being achieved by multi-hulled catamarans in the lightest winds. The America’s Cup yachts can sail twice as fast as the wind: in September 2013, a speed of 47.57 knots was achieved in 21.8 knots of wind. Wind power is the cleanest and most sustainable propulsion power, and above all it comes without cost. There are opportunities here. A British company, Windship Technology Ltd, has developed and patented an auxiliary propulsion system called the Wind Assisted Sail Propulsion System (WASPS). It is estimated that it can save up to 30 per cent of fuel consumption, and it has been validated by Lloyd’s Register and the Wolfson Unit at Southampton University. No other wind propulsion system is believed to achieve such performance, and the system could be retrofitted to certain types of large bulk carriers using specific trade routes. All in all, fuel consumption, and thereby emissions, can be reduced by about 70–80 per cent, compared with the previous generation of ships delivered in the boom years earlier this century.

The shipping revolution Traditionally the shipping industry is conservative and resists costly changes.

THE SHIPPING REVOLUTION IS HERE

Windship Technology

The same can be said of the shipbuilding industry, which is reluctant to embrace development in radical new ship designs with all the associated costs. However, we are now entering a Shipping Revolution period, where shipyards and shipping companies, and also charterers, will have to adapt to the modern, efficient ship designs – or cease to exist. Construction of the ultra-low-emission ships, based on 70–80 per cent lower fuel consumption, will begin before 2020. In the coming years, even modern ships built during the last ten years with a fuel consumption of about 30 tonnes per sea-voyage day will become uncompetitive. At $1500 per tonne of MGO, the fuel cost will increase by $30,000 per day at present prices. An ultra-lowemission ship will save 70 per cent of this, or $21,000 per day, which represents an annual saving of around $6.3 million. Naturally, such cost savings will only be possible in the newgeneration ships. The owners of ultra-low-emission ships may wish to improve their charterer relationships by sharing the savings through a long-term charter, which will make the financing easy and take away the speculative risk in shipping. Focusing on the long term, charterer and shipowner may agree that the chartered ship is to operate in a high-quality mode with good guaranteed economy. In this way, they may bring an end to the ‘savings’ approach introduced in the last ten loss-making years and revert to the high-quality shipping standards of traditional European shipowners.

An opportunity for the Red Ensign

costs and the higher quality of ship, crew and maintenance. Northern European officers and ship managers, who were laid off in the costreduction frenzy, would again be competitive in a quality operation. We also expect that those taking up maritime careers as cadets will be more environmentally conscious, wishing to work on board sustainable ships, wanting to make a difference to the environment and helping to reduce global warming. In slow-speed operation, a ship could become a floating university, with qualified seafarers becoming more qualified while sailing around the world. Their studies could cover ways of achieving constant innovation and performance improvements in shipping. While costs have been rising in Asia, lowcost ship management in new shipping countries has increased. British costs are now competitive with those in Japan, Korea or Singapore. Creating a large publicly quoted shipping company in the UK, providing employment based in northern Europe for managers and officers and relying on long-term chartering, would provide some strong advantages. The fleet would be solely high-quality ultra-lowemission ships, and the cost structure would be much lower than for conventional tonnage and operation. The time to act is now! n

Ultra-low-emission ships will be attractive for all parties involved. Not only charterers but underwriters will appreciate the lower

For more information about Windship, see www.windshiptechnology.com.

A visualisation of Windship Technology’s Auxiliary Sail Propulsion System. Two 35-metrehigh masts installed on the deck of a vessel such as a bulk carrier will each be fitted with three aerodynamic wings. The rigs rotate automatically to optimise the power of the prevailing wind so as to allow reductions in engine power and fuel saving while maintaining the same speed.

Ultra-lowemission ships will be attractive for all parties involved

Rowing a St Ayles skiff through the surf off Portsoy, Aberdeenshire.

Fixed-seat rowing Photographs by Kathy Mansfield

Fixed-seat rowing – as opposed to the sliding-seat rowing common in most rowing clubs – has had a renaissance in recent years. Naval whalers have been restored; gig racing in Cornwall now numbers over 69 clubs; the Great River Race on the Thames draws over 2400 rowers through central London each September; and the Scottish Rowing Association’s St Ayles skiff, designed by Iain Oughtred as a community project, has emulated its Shetland forebears and reached most ports in Scotland, and many more around the world. Nearly 300 plywood kits have been sold since the skiff was designed in 2009. Rowing is much more fun than exercising in a gym. Hundreds of years ago, Cornish pilots used gigs to row out to sailing ships, and fishermen rowed against the wind to get to their fishing grounds. These days, rowing events take place around Britain and Europe, on both coasts of the USA and Canada, and as far away as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. Rowing is good outdoor exercise, and sociable. It gets coastal communities on the water – and inland ones, too. Women take it up as much as men. All ages up to 70+ are enthusiasts. No doubt some who start young at their oars will head to a maritime career.

Traditional fishing from a mahogany skiff at Cleeve Mill, Goring-on-Thames, Oxfordshire.

The skiff Sgian Dubh at the Thames Traditional Boat Festival.

A fleet of oared skiffs, gigs and barges on the Thames in London at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Pageant in 2012.

Nearly 2000 fixed-seat rowing boats participate in the annual Venice Vogalonga, when motor boats are banned for a day.

The Royal Thamesis, based on Queen Mary’s shallop of 1689, at the Rialto Bridge in Venice.

Molly, a replica of an American whaleboat, as used by New England whaling ships, based in Henley-on-Thames.

Gloriana, the Queen’s magnificent rowbarge, built for her Diamond Jubilee, now visits many events on the Thames.

Geopolitics of the oceans

Freedom of the seas Rear Admiral Chris Parry CBE PhD considers the present and future challenges facing the ‘watery World Wide Web’

Littoral control

significant threats to the freedom of the seas and to the international rules-based system. The challenges centre on two main issues: the extension of state control and jurisdiction into exclusive economic

Over three-quarters of the world’s population, over 80 per cent of the world’s capital cities and most significant hubs of international trade and military power are concentrated in the littorals: the territorial seas and up to 100 miles inland. Critical air and sea routes from oceanic areas pass through coastal regions, and important sources of offshore oil, natural gas and seabed minerals are located in the adjacent waters. The offshore zone is increasingly used for extensive land reclamation schemes, energy platforms and offshore construction projects, while the seabed hosts progressively more fishing, resource extraction and power distribution arrangements, as well as submarine cables. All these activities are likely to require increased coordination, surveillance and security capacity to prevent interference by terrorists, criminals and hostile states. On the one hand, this intensifying trend represents a distinct commercial opportunity, in the delivery of infrastructure, specialised skills and technological innovation; on the other, it represents a distinct threat to the freedom of the seas and, in particular, to innocent passage. This is because we are likely to see the creeping territorialisation of these littoral regions as states seek to extend their control and jurisdictions further out to sea, right up to

Wikipedia Commons / Kvasir: CCASA3.0_Unp.

We are likely to see the creeping territorialisation of these littoral regions

ll of us who have an interest in the sea or who make our living in the maritime and marine sectors appreciate the advantages of the freedom of the seas. The sea is the primary medium of access and exchange in an interconnected world and represents the physical equivalent of the Internet, the critical enabler for globalisation and free trade. The freedom to use the sea underpins an international rules-based system that is reinforced by international law, common interests and the willingness and ability of states to enforce shared values. In particular, the Western democracies, in being strong at sea and in protecting their national interests, have sought to maintain the integrity of the watery World Wide Web. It is easy to take that integrity for granted. In the second decade of the twenty-first century, geopolitical forces, new power dynamics and the assertion of other countries’ national interests represent

Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) – states are increasingly attempting to exercise restrictive or sovereign jurisdiction over their EEZs, from 12 miles (their territorial seas) to at least 200 miles from their coasts.

zones (EEZs) and encroachment by states on the high seas.

35 US Navy / PD

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

Russian Ministry of Defence

on the high seas. Malaysia, for example, has sought to exclude military exercises by foreign powers in its EEZ, while seeking to prevent the passage of nuclear-powered ships through international straits that are contained within its archipelagos. China is attempting to exclude the passage of foreign warships within certain distances from its illegal artificial structures in the South and East China Seas. Others will use the pretext of dealing with criminality, migration, terrorism and other threats in extending their jurisdictions. As a result, there is a very real risk that exclusive economic zones will become de facto exclusive zones and challenge existing international law and conventions.

The US aircraft carrier Carl Vinson with part of the US Pacific Fleet on exercises with warships of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defence Forces in the East China Sea, 2017.

Arctic Council /PD

and, in some cases, beyond their current EEZ limits. They will wish to exploit the resources that lie on and below the seabed and in the water column, and they will seek to ensure the security of their maritime borders, in response to what are likely to be increasing levels of migration, illicit exploitation of resources and bursts of criminality and terrorism. There are indications that states will also seek progressively to limit foreign maritime military activities and control the passage of commercial shipping in their actual or claimed EEZs. All these factors will have implications for the freedom of navigation. Several states already seek to impose limitations on traffic in their EEZs, for security, environmental or navigational safety reasons. In future, a variety of pretexts will be used, such as ‘green’ (environmentally protected) seaways, commercial exclusion zones or traffic control schemes that ostensibly have a justification under the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), which will effectively limit access to offshore zones. In some cases, as in the Maldives and the Seychelles, where there are justifiable limits on the courses by which the islands can be approached in the interests of fragile ecosystems, these will seem reasonable; in others, they are likely to be attempts to control legitimate movement

Oceanic encroachment For now, the integrity of the rules-based system on the high seas is maintained by the power of the free world’s maritime forces. Russia and China have recognised the importance of

(Above) Climate change, and the retreat of sea ice has opened the Arctic sea routes; 2017 saw the first transit of the Northeast Passage without the use of an icebreaker. Canada’s claim that the Northwest Passage includes its own Internal Waters is disputed by the United States and the EU. (Left) the Russian aircraft carrier and flagship Admiral Kuznetsov on exercises with the Russian Northern Fleet, whose role in asserting control of the ‘Northern Sea Route’ is being given increased emphasis.

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS

US Navy / PD

Wary cooperation or disguised competition? China and the United States maritime forces participate in the biennial international RIMPAC (‘Rim of the Pacific’) exercises, and reciprocal port visits. (Right) the Chinese frigate Hengshui steams in company with the USS Stockdale during RIMPAC 2016. (Below) Officers of the US 7th Fleet flagship USS Blue Ridge at a wardroom lunch with Chinese counterparts during a 2015 courtesy visit to the Chinese naval port of Zhanjiang.

US Navy / PD

The first half of the 21st century is likely to witness a series of tests of will

(Above) An armed Chinese fighter jet flying alongside a US Navy patrol aircraft over the South China Sea, where Chinese military facilities have been constructed on reclaimed land around reefs and atolls in international waters. Fiery Cross or Yongshu Reef (right) has been occupied by the PRC, but is also claimed by Vietnam and the Philippines, as well as by Taiwan (in the name of the Republic of China).

US Navy / PD

the sea in relation to their status as great powers, both in promoting commercial growth and in incorporating further means of influence and coercion into their diplomacy. In China’s case, its investment in its maritime ‘Silk Road’ through the Indian Ocean, to Africa, the Gulf and beyond, is central to the expansion of its geopolitical influence and economic prosperity. In parallel, both Russia and China are challenging the current rules-based international system, citing the need to ‘deAmericanise’ the world and its institutions. They claim sovereign rights across several areas of strategic interest, which they complain were lost when they were in positions of inferiority or weakness. There are calls for ‘new rules or no rules’ and attempts to avoid or override international or national obligations, especially in relation to UNCLOS. At the practical level, Russia is busily extending its military reach and capability to dominate the Black Sea, the Baltic Sea and the

Arctic, with the deployment of increasingly capable area-denial weapons and systems. Its occupation of Crimea has seen a significant re-fortification of the peninsula, characterised by anti-surface and anti-air weapons, backed up by powerful aviation, surveillance and offshore-zone patrol forces. A similar process is under way in the Baltic, and the Arctic has also been significantly reinforced, while Russia has imposed rigorous conditions and costs on those vessels using the Northern Sea Route. Current practice suggests that Russia will continue to enforce them even outside its twelve-mile territorial sea, once the ice recedes further offshore.

Military might and sovereign right Meanwhile, China has adopted a territorial ‘land grab’ approach to the South and East China Seas, overriding the claims of its neighbours to their own economic zones and gradually extending its grip out to its so-called nine- or ten-dash line, almost 1500 nautical miles from China. The systematic construction of infrastructure and military facilities, as well as the basing of combat aircraft and surveillance systems on the reefs of the Spratly and Paracel island groups, is evidence of the use of might to assert sovereign right, with the possibility that China will seek to impose restrictions (and possibly charges) on the passage of merchant vessels and on the operations of foreign warships. These measures by China and Russia strengthen their relative advantage in times of tension and war, and implicitly coerce and influence their neighbours in peacetime as well. Strategically, if Russia and China could routinely exclude the US and its allies from areas of sea (and the associated airspace) that represent their ‘near abroad’ they would increase their ability to dominate their regions both commercially and strategically, while

FREEDOM OF THE SEAS Overseas military outposts of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Russian Federation United Kingdom France United States of America

People’s Republic of China

OVERSEAS MILITARY BASES

belonging to permanent members of the UN Security Council United States of America Russian Federation United Kingdom France

People’s Repubic of China weakening the assurances and links between the US and its major allies and treaty partners. Consequently, the first half of the twenty-first century is likely to witness a series of tests of will and resolve as both the US and its allies and China and Russia probe and assess each other’s responses to incidents on the ragged edge between ‘territorial’ claims and the continuation of the freedom of the seas. As long as China and Russia have more to lose than to gain from a breakdown of the international system of law and trade, the current grudging acceptance of the overall status quo seems set to continue, punctuated by a sequence of encounters and disputes in the margins of UNCLOS, which, if not resolved, have the potential for confrontation and conflict.

Both littoral control and oceanic encroachment have serious implications for trading patterns and the universal access to the sea currently afforded to the international community. The fundamental issue at stake is whether UNCLOS will remain the basis for the international order at sea. In this regard, a comparison with the British system of public footpaths may be instructive. Britain has an extensive network of freely accessible footpaths across private and public land. As long as these footpaths are walked at intervals of not less than a year and a day, the landowner may not deny access to them. Seafarers would do well to remember the analogy – because, unless responsible states continue to assert the rights of innocent passage and the freedom of the seas, the conventions that have underpinned world economic growth and globalisation for the past 400 years are likely to be severely compromised.

At present, only the US is prepared seriously to challenge the blatant ‘land grab’ at sea by China, the various attempts at encroachment across the world, and maritime coercion by Russia. In order to prevent the freedom of the seas being replaced by a patchwork of controlled and exclusive sea-space, other countries will need to assist the US in ensuring that the seas of the world remain open to those who proceed ‘on their lawful occasions’. n

NOAA / oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/backmatter/faqs

Maintaining the freedom of the seas

ISA

Notes: Bases on actual or claimed sovereign or dependent overseas territories are included. In some cases a single marker represents multiple facilities in the same locality. Sources: Wikipedia, BBC.

Rear Admiral Chris Parry CBE PhD served 36 years in the Royal Navy and was, subsequently, the first Chair of the UK’s Marine Management Organisation. Today, he runs a strategic forecasting company. He is the author of Down South: a Falklands War Diary (Viking, 2012) and Super Highway: Sea Power in the 21st Century (Elliott & Thompson, 2014). In 2015, he was the winner of the Desmond Wettern Media Award.

Cobalt-rich ferro-manganese deposits on the seabed near the US-administered Marianas, and (above) the International Seabed Authority’s map of the ‘Areas of Interest’ in the Western Pacific for littoral states interested in exploiting such deposits.

The significance of Britain’s new aircraft carriers

A statement of national intent WARSHIPS International Fleet Review celebrates HMS Queen Elizabeth’s arrival in Portsmouth

Thales UK and Babcock International). The carrier programme is not a cheap venture, for Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship Prince of Wales will cost over £6.2 billion along with infrastructure costs of £100 million at Portsmouth alone. The good news is that those costs can be amortised over the fifty-year lifetime of these magnificent vessels. The carriers demonstrate a government committed to strengthening the RN and to maintaining British influence globally. In an ever more unstable and uncertain world, with growing threats from state and non-state actors, the two ships are ideally suited to project power and exert influence across the oceans and even deep inland. MOD / Crown Copyright

Sailors lined up on the flight deck alongside civilian colleagues from the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, as HMS Queen Elizabeth enters Portsmouth for the first time on 16 August 2017.

he maiden arrival of HMS Queen Elizabeth in her Hampshire home was a moment of great, good cheer not just for local people but also for the Royal Navy and the nation too. The creation of such a mighty vessel – on

Throughout the ages warships have been a highly visible expression of a state’s defence strategy

the cutting edge and with immense potential to project power in safeguarding the UK and its allies – also safeguards the continuation of Portsmouth as the Royal Navy’s foremost base. Throughout the ages warships have been a highly visible expression of a state’s defence strategy, and the most complex and expensive of systems. HMS Queen Elizabeth, at over 65,000 tonnes, is the biggest warship ever built for the Royal Navy – consisting of 17 million components. That she arrived in Portsmouth two days early after seven weeks of sea trials since first steaming from Rosyth was a triumph for all concerned. The principal players in the success story have been the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Navy and their Aircraft Carrier Alliance partners (comprising BAE Systems,

A salute by the First Sea Lord In the words of the current First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Philip Jones, Queen Elizabeth is ‘much more than a floating airport, more than a bulky weapon of war, a statement of national intent about the future’. Admiral Jones has described the supercarrier’s arrival in her home port as ‘another seminal moment in the long history of the Royal Navy in Portsmouth’. He added: ‘In the golden years of the second Elizabethan age, a new era of British maritime power is beginning. And in fifty years’ time, people in Portsmouth will still talk about the day they saw this 65,000-tonne giant arrive for the first time.’

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The strike force As a strike carrier Queen Elizabeth will provide every aspect of maritime mobility, flexibility, availability, delivery of response, sustained reach and resilience. She and her sister vessel also offer equally important aspects of presence and defence diplomacy. Presence buys influence, but at the same time the new strike carrier provides freedom of action, intent without constraint, and both political and military choices. She will fly the STOVL version of the Joint Strike Fighter, the ‘B’ variant of the F-35, the Lightning II, of which the government has so

far committed to buy 48 (out of a hoped-for total of 138 F-35s). The carrier will also carry the Merlin Mk2 helicopter fitted with Crowsnest airborne early warning (AEW) radar. Of course there are concerns, not least over the spiralling costs of the F-35, though even at £100 million each that aircraft costs far less than the RAF’s Typhoon fighter (total programme cost nearly £18 billion). Per plane the F-35B is also £40 million cheaper than the RAF’s new tanker. The size of the proposed carrier air group – at most 40 aircraft – seems small. A US Navy carrier embarks far more aircraft per tonne. Some commentators are still suggesting the ship should carry a different aircraft, launched by catapult, but Queen Elizabeth is here and the F-35Bs have been ordered; the first pilots are trained and ready. MOD / Crown Copyright

The First Sea Lord saluted the massive effort undertaken to deliver such awesome new capability to defend the nation. ‘Within the Royal Navy and within British industry, a generation has dedicated the best years of their professional careers to making the Queen Elizabeth Class a reality,’ he said on arrival day. ‘I’d like to pay tribute to all in the Aircraft Carrier Alliance, and their leadership, for all they have done to enable this moment. Today is the culmination of their achievement – not only in building this ship but in proving to the world, and to ourselves, that the United Kingdom remains a great maritime industrial nation.’ Admiral Jones also thanked the US Navy, the US Marine Corps and the French Navy, who have enabled the RN to maintain its strike carrier skills in recent years, following the decision by the coalition government in 2010 to suddenly axe the previous generation of carriers and their jets. All have played their part, felt Admiral Jones, in ensuring that ‘in the years and decades to come, Queen Elizabeth and her sister ship will demonstrate the kind of nation we are – not a diminished nation, withdrawing from the world, but a confident, outward-looking and ambitious nation, with a Royal Navy to match.’

MOD / Crown Copyright

Chief Petty Officer Physical Training Instructor Andrew Vercoe, one of a ship’s company of over 700, at the helm of HMS Queen Elizabeth as she left Rosyth on a series of sea trials in the North Sea earlier in the year.

The Prime Minister’s message Besides the ship, perhaps the most significant element of arrival day at Portsmouth was the presence of the Prime Minister, who had not until then shown much overt interest in naval matters. The PM reminded Queen Elizabeth’s ship’s company that a great many political expectations have landed on the carrier’s flight-deck. Yet construction of Queen

A pilot’s-eye view of the carrier during her 2017 sea trials.

A S TAT E M E N T O F N AT I O N A L I N T E N T US Navy - PD

HMS Queen Elizabeth photographed from the Nimitzclass aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush during exercise Saxon Warrior 2017 – a joint carrier strike group exercise to demonstrate interoperability and capability to respond to crises and deter potential threats.

MOD / Crown Copyright

She is a true testament to British shipbuilding and design

Elizabeth and Prince of Wales, even at a time of straitened budgets, demonstrates Britain is still a major player in the West’s defence, available for high-intensity war fighting against a state foe, targeted action against terrorists, or providing humanitarian aid and disaster relief. HMS Queen Elizabeth is a symbol of the United Kingdom as a great global, maritime nation, and a stunning piece of twenty-firstcentury engineering. She is a true testament to British shipbuilding and design. Britain can be proud of this ship, of what she represents, and the message she delivers – that the UK intends carving out a positive, confident role for itself on the world stage in the years ahead. It is determined to remain a fully engaged global power, capable of working closely with friends and allies around the world. The Prime Minister has renewed the government’s commitment to increase defence spending every year and meet NATO’s target to spend two per cent of GDP on it annually. ‘Many times in our history we have called upon the Royal Navy to defend our island and protect our interests and those of our citizens around the world,’ said Mrs May. ‘The threats we face have changed and naval technology advanced beyond all recognition. But in the fifty years of service to come from this vessel, we can be inspired by those traditions to face the new challenges

Members of the Queen Elizabeth’s crew prepare to launch and recover a sea boat during a man overboard training exercise.

of the twenty-first century with the same determination and resolve which have always been the Royal Navy’s hallmarks.’

A need for ongoing commitment As the new strike carriers approach operational capability, it is essential that Mrs May’s government ensures they are properly protected. More frigates need to be built and crewed as quickly as possible. It is also essential that defects in the power generation systems of Type 45 destroyers are rectified without further delay, for they are the carriers’ primary defence against air attack. So far the May administration has been tardy in this regard, with orders for new frigates and repair programmes for the destroyers too long in gestation. Even so, during her visit to Portsmouth and HMS Queen Elizabeth, the Prime Minister said that throughout history the Royal Navy has been there to protect the United Kingdom and would continue to do so. Mrs May made it clear she believes the new carriers will be at the heart of defending the nation via their primary role: ‘Alongside her supporting task group, including state-ofthe-art aircraft, helicopters and escorts, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will in time give the UK a truly world-class carrier strike capability for decades to come.’ n This is an edited and extended version of the Odin’s Eye leader commentary as originally published in the October 2017 edition of WARSHIPS International Fleet Review. It is used here by kind permission of the editor of WARSHIPS IFR and that magazine’s publisher Tandy Media. www.warshipsifr.com

The need for integrated maritime intelligence

Securing British waters Dr Dave Sloggett looks at what must be done to create an effective maritime security environment in the UK’s territorial waters

MOD / OGL

Inadequate public and political attention Since then it seems that it takes extraordinary events for the subject to raise its head on the political radar. Only when the Russians sail their aircraft carrier through the English Channel en route to conduct operations off the coast of Syria or a Russian submarine is believed to be lurking off Faslane hoping to pick up and track a departing Trident

nuclear submarine does it reach the headlines of the mainstream media. The headlines only served to create a narrative when the passing of the Nimrod was lamented and the decision by the Conservative government to scrap the new variant bemoaned by all those who appreciated the significant role played by the aircraft in helping create maritime domain awareness, as well as its significant contribution to search and rescue (SAR) and fisheries protection operations. The notion that a single C-130 Hercules on standby at RAF Brize Norton could provide the same SAR capability as the Nimrod was always a fallacious argument. The other task conducted by the Nimrod was to sweep the channels out of Faslane ahead of the departure of a Polaris or Trident nuclear submarine. Since the demise of the Nimrod in 2010 the UK has had to rely on MOD / Crown Copyright

s a subject, maritime security waxes and wanes like the moon. It is to be expected, for an island nation. From the historical threats posed by the Dutch, French and Spanish navies to the threats of imminent invasion at the start of World War II, the issue of securing our maritime border was never-ending. And yet, today, it is so undervalued. Only once in modern times, it can be argued, did maritime security really get political traction. In the 1970s, the vision of a North Sea oil rig being attacked by Irish Republican terrorists, hostages taken and the rig eventually blown up did keep a number of political leaders awake at night. Operation Tapestry, using long-range maritime patrol and reaction forces based on the United Kingdom’s Special Forces, created an effective umbrella over the North Sea production facilities. Launched on 1 January 1977, the mission involved patrols mounted by Nimrod aircraft over an area of 700,000 km2. At no point did any rig come under threat. It is one of the classic examples of quiet, unsung security measures creating enough of a deterrent to ensure that no one got close to attacking a key element of the UK’s critical national infrastructure (CNI).

Two Nimrod R1s of RAF 51 Squadron in 2004. The Nimrods were retired in 2011.

Operation Tapestry created an effective umbrella over the North Sea production facilities The Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, emitting carbon particulates as it passes through the Channel in 2012, escorted by the now decommissioned HMS Liverpool.

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MV Arctic Sea, a general cargo ship, which in mysterious circumstances, and with its Automatic Identification System disabled, passed through the Channel in 2009 apparently under the control of pirates who had hijacked the vessel in the Baltic.

US Navy

Achieving a totally secure border is impossible – but we can do better

Boeing

(Above) a Boeing P-8, based on the 737 airliner, due to operate from RAF Lossiemouth from 2019. (Below) a ScanEagle UAV (drone) of the type now operated by the Royal Navy.

French and American maritime patrol aircraft to sweep these areas. The protection of the most fundamental element of our national security was in effect outsourced to our NATO partners.

Daily threats An example illustrates the scale of the problem. On 9 December 2014, one month after reports of a Russian submarine operating in Sweden’s territorial waters had appeared in the media, the paucity of the UK’s maritime patrol capability was highlighted when two American, one French and one Canadian aircraft were deployed to search for a Russian submarine believed to be operating in the area around Faslane. No specific information was ever found to indicate a Russian submarine had been present on that occasion, but evidence has since emerged of Russian submarine commanders becoming even more adventurous in their operations in the Irish Sea. Given the current state of relations with Russia and its emerging military capability, this has created an obvious need to reverse the decision to scrap the Nimrod. The procurement of nine American Boeing P-8 aircraft to be based at RAF Lossiemouth from 2019 onwards will finally close that gap in our maritime security capability. Yet, on a daily basis, threats to the security of the UK are active in our coastal waters. Recent arrivals of migrants on small boats across the English Channel may not yet match the numbers of desperate people who try to cross the Mediterranean, but they do suggest that organised crime is becoming interested in exploiting this route.

A secure maritime border? Achieving a totally secure border is impossible. The length of the UK coastline, with its numerous inlets, estuaries and harbours, makes that a complicated undertaking. But we can do better. The creation of a National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC) in 2010 was a start. Its aim was to create an environment where a greater degree of intelligence-sharing occurred about activities in and around the coastline. The timing of its launch, shortly after the attack on Mumbai from the sea, made it an important step. But that was all it was, a step. Simply creating an intelligence-sharing capability does not create a secure maritime environment. That requires the application of more resources. And that requires political will – which at present is sadly absent. Cutbacks in the surface fleet of the Royal Navy simply exacerbate the problem. A few additional patrol boats, ordered to plug the gap between production of the Daring class destroyers and production of the new Type-26 City class frigate helps but does not provide a solution.

Situational awareness and real-time intelligence Key to any form of secure maritime environment is situational awareness. While the NMIC can share intelligence collected from many sources, it does not create a realtime picture of what is going on. That requires a different approach, one that deploys multiple sensor platforms to collect data and combine them to form a coherent maritime picture. At the moment that kind of capability only exists in any detail in the Dover Straits and through the English Channel. But even that requires vessel operators to switch on their automatic identification systems (AIS). One example of the issues that arise with this kind

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£26 million at Port Patrick in 1999, when four people were arrested. That too was an intelligence-led operation, in a year when the Scottish Crime Squad made record seizures of heroin. The arrests and the effective deployment of assets to intercept the vessels made the smugglers move their operations southwards – the peaceful Isle of Wight becoming a new centre of drugs activity.

The risk management plan What these various accounts reveal is the vital importance of the risk management plan (RMP). Where intelligence information is not forthcoming – and it is not unreasonable to suggest that this is the norm – the criminals can exploit gaps in the maritime security architecture. Closing those gaps requires more resources and also a greater deployment of new technologies, including the use of unmanned aircraft. In this regard lessons can be learnt from the success stories that have emerged from the Gulf of Guinea, where efforts to counter piracy close inshore have seen the deployment of a mix of new fast patrol vessels with shore-based radar systems and unmanned aircraft to provide a near real-time read-out of activities occurring in the territorial waters of Sierra Leone, Togo, Benin, Ghana and Nigeria. This stream of information has enabled the authorities to deny the territorial waters of those countries to the criminals. Operating further out to sea, they are no longer able to target anchorages, which

Where intelligence information is not forthcoming, the criminals can exploit gaps in the maritime security architecture

MOD / Crown Copyright

of voluntary approach was the transit of the English Channel in late July 2009 by the MV Arctic Sea, under the control of pirates who had seized the vessel in the Baltic a few days earlier. The AIS system had been disabled, and the vessel was eventually recovered by a Russian warship off the Cape Verde Islands a few days later. The incident remains shrouded in mystery, but the simple fact that a hijacked vessel could move through the English Channel past the nuclear power station at Dungeness and several key harbours was obviously a worry. Such manipulation of AIS signals is becoming of increasing concern. Recent reporting by the Sunday Times highlighted how many vessels in transit from the eastern end of the Mediterranean go missing for several days. Some are obviously involved in smuggling weapons to the various factions fighting in Libya. But the fact that a number of vessels appeared off the coast of Scotland did raise some eyebrows. In the past, the myriad of inlets and small harbours along the west coast of Scotland has been a delivery point for narcotics shipped in from South America. Vessels would either rendezvous with a local trawler or deposit drugs overboard on a buoy to be picked up later. Fisheries patrol vessels and aircraft patrolling the area would often spot suspicious vessels and arrests would be made. The patrol patterns were often driven by intelligence information received as the vessel was en route, helping cue the surface and air resources to likely search areas. Images of the crew quickly dumping their illegal cargo over the side once they thought they had been discovered were often a feature of such patrols. All very frustrating for those involved. Interspersed with those failures, however, where some spectacular successes. One that stands out was the seizure of cannabis worth

MOD / Crown Copyright

The frigate HMS Somerset, after intercepting the Zanzibar-registered tug MV Hamal in the North Sea in 2015. The multi-agency operation, which recovered a record haul of cocaine, involved the Royal Navy, the National Crime Agency and Border Force and was supported by the French Customs, Investigation Service (DNRED), the UK National Maritime Information Centre (NMIC) and the Lisbonbased Maritime Analysis and Operational Centre – Narcotics (MAOC–N) as well as the Scottish police.

A marine from HMS Iron Duke with a colleague from the Ghanaian Navy, during a 2014 visit to Sekondi, Ghana, in a region where measures to combat piracy have had some success.

UKBA

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The UK Border Agency’s 42-metre cutter Vigilant at speed.

MOD / Crown Copyright

What is really needed is to take the NMIC to the next level

reduces the chances of success in hijacking vessels. Similar results have been seen off the coast of Bangladesh and in the piracy-plagued waters off Indonesia and in the Malacca Strait. As the real-time picture of the maritime environment improves, so does its security. This simple rule is one that the UK government could well adopt. The enduring legacy of Operation Tapestry, although it is hard to prove, is that prevention is always better than cure. Operation Tapestry put in place an infrastructure that developed the RMP ahead of the threat. By doing that it stopped the IRA even thinking about making an attack. A similar approach is required today, one that invests in new technologies to create an RMP that provides those charged with protecting our coastlines with real-time situational awareness. As the terrorist threat and the issue of economic migrants inevitably increase, the time is ripe for the government to get ahead of the problem. Building more coastal protection vessels and updating the Customs cutter fleet are welcome moves, but that is only a start. The procurement of a fleet of small unmanned aircraft whose data can be relayed in real time to shore-based reporting centres would also be a good move – but what is really required is to take the NMIC to the next level. It needs to progress from operating on ad hoc intelligence,

Three of the Royal Navy’s River class offshore patrol vessels.

to actively gathering information on what is happening in the UK’s coastal waters and monitoring it in real time, so that surface and airborne assets can be allocated to look at any suspicious activity. While the potential of satellitebased observations to help feed the RMP remains in its infancy, the potential of airborne radar observations to complement those obtained by shore-based facilities does need to be explored. The arrival into service of the P-8 aircraft will provide an impetus for examination of how that might feed data into a wider network aimed at building a real-time RMP. Through such developments the maritime security of the UK can be markedly improved. Even if this is piecemeal and driven by small budgets it can help to create the building blocks of a wider architecture. It is a step that in the current political climate is unlikely to happen. But that does not mean it is unnecessary. Getting ahead of the threat can stop it happening. Events in Mumbai in 2008 provided what might well be a foretaste of something similar in the United Kingdom in the not too distant future. Preventing that from occurring should be a national imperative. Political leaders, irrespective of your political hue, take note. It may be you who has to explain why people died in an entirely preventable incident. n Dr Dave Sloggett is an authority on maritime security and in 2015 was a visiting research fellow in the Mathematical Institute at the University of Oxford. He has researched and written extensively on piracy and counter-piracy, and has operational experience working with HM Customs and Excise on counter-narcotics operations. His book The Anarchic Sea: Maritime Security in the 21st Century was published in 2013.

Changes in the UK Ship Register

Raising the standard Michael Parker, Non-Executive Chairman of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, explains how the MCA is boosting the reputation of the Red Ensign

A challenge for the MCA

MCA

The MCA already appreciated that it had a crucial and pivotal role to play in supporting and facilitating trade. A vibrant and economically

successful shipping industry is central to that objective. As a safety regulator, the MCA also recognised the need to reassure the public that the ships at our ports and off our coasts, and those flying the Red Ensign anywhere in the world, are operating safely. The challenge for the MCA was to secure safety but to be commercially savvy and develop more of an empathy with and understanding of the business needs of the shipping industry. The agency appreciated that it needed to work ever more closely with the industry it regulated to support it, enabling shipping to comply with safety rules. Appointing me as a non-executive chairman with industry experience was part and parcel of that commitment to driving change. I joined the MCA in January 2017 MCA

wo years ago, during the second biannual London International Shipping Week in September 2015, the UK government published the report of the Maritime Growth Study. The study was led by Lord Mountevans and was a masterpiece in collaborative working between industry and government. It was a wide-ranging study that examined all aspects of the marine and maritime sectors and made far-reaching recommendations for change. Too often, studies, reviews and reports are greeted with a triumphant fanfare, only then to find themselves gathering dust on a metaphorical shelf somewhere. Not so with the Maritime Growth Study of 2015. Both government and industry leaders must be congratulated for taking its recommendations seriously and putting real drive and impetus into practical implementation. A significant part of the study and its recommendations dealt with the changes the shipping industry wanted to see in the way the UK Ship Register was operated by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). The UK flag (the Red Ensign) has a great history, but any organisation that has been in existence for 182 years needs to change from time to time, and the Maritime Growth Study was unequivocal in recommending that we had reached one of those moments. It is to the great credit of the MCA that it was open to the idea of change and was so willing to relish the opportunities that change presented.

The Red Duster once signalled membership of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s greatest merchant fleet.

A marine surveyor from the MCA at work.

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JMBryant / CCASA3.0Unported.

The largest UK-registered vessel afloat: the French-owned container ship CMA CGM Kerguelen, built in South Korea by Samsung Heavy Industries, in the Solent after setting out from Southampton on her maiden voyage in 2015. With a tonnage of 175000 GRT and a cargo capacity of 17722 TEU, it is one of the largest container ships in the world.

MCA

Tonnage has grown by 11.4% since the publication of the Maritime Growth Study

to support Sir Alan Massey and his excellent team in the transformational journey they had already started in response to the Maritime Growth Study. Together we have achieved a great deal, and there is more on the horizon.

Building the team The Civil Service can have a reputation for being slow to innovate and for hiding behind rules that prevent what feels like logical and straightforward change. There were suggestions within the Maritime Growth Study itself that the MCA may only be able to be more commercially responsive under an operating model that took it out of the perceived bureaucracy and shackles of the civil service. In practice, however, the excellent civil servants I have come across in both the Department for Transport and the MCA have shown determined courage and imagination to implement real changes within existing operating structures. They have challenged received wisdom, recognised risks and seized opportunities. We have recruited commercial expertise in the form of a new director of the UK Ship Register – Doug Barrow has joined us with over 30 years’ experience and knowledge about what

makes the shipping world tick. He has steadily built a team around him of skilled people committed to attracting new customers to the joys of the Red Ensign and making sure that our existing customer base stays loyal. That has resulted in sustained month-on-month growth in the size of the UK Ship Register. Tonnage has grown by 11.4% since the publication of the Maritime Growth Study and now exceeds 16 million tons. The average age of the fleet is also declining, and it is now below the target set two years ago.

Further reforms There are other examples of reforms where the Whitehall machinery has shown itself to be willing to take managed risks and to move at a much faster pace than I expected. One was the agreement to and development of a new UK Ship Register website, for which the Government Digital Service has given us permission to sit outside the gov.uk platform because they understood the commercial imperatives driving the UK Ship Register transformation. We have also had agreement from the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s team for alternative approaches to packaging how the MCA charges ship owners fees for its services. Before too long, we will be launching our online ship registration service – WAVES. Our customers will be able to register their vessels and make changes in real time, all in the electronic world without having to rely on the traditional postal service. This is going to be a real game-changer for our customers and the MCA’s staff, increasing efficiency

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The MCA’s headquarters in Southampton.

and speed. Similarly, the MCA is investing both money and time in the development of online seafarer documentation and medical approval systems, which we expect to have up and running during 2019.

玄史生 CC1.0-PD

MCA

The Port of Singapore, where the MCA has made services available to UK-registered vessels.

A resource for UK-registered ships Attracting ships to the UK Ship Register is one challenge, but making sure that they get excellent customer service when they want it is quite another. In a highly competitive market for skills and talent, the MCA has struggled for many years to fill its marine surveyor posts. With significant vacancies, it proved difficult to meet customer demand for the services of these skilled experts with a solid professional background as master mariners, chief engineers or naval architects. Thanks to considerable effort in the Department for Transport and the MCA and the full cooperation of ministers and civil servants in the Treasury, much more competitive pay rates, coupled with modernised and flexible working patterns, terms and conditions have been put in place. This has delivered a marine surveyor workforce that is genuinely available to support UK-registered ships at any time of the day or night. We have also placed a resource in Singapore so that UK-registered ships needing services in that part of the world have what they need readily available. Demonstrating even more flexibility on our part, it is even possible for ship owners and operators with ships with the right risk profile to opt to have their ships surveyed not by the MCA but by formally approved recognised organisations such as classification societies.

Achieving the right balance The MCA’s expert marine surveyors are supported by customer account managers and client technical managers to ensure we

provide prompt and efficient responses on a consistent basis. That word ‘consistent’ is important, because it has been one of the regular criticisms in the past that ship owners and operators would get different responses and approaches to the same questions and issues from different MCA marine offices. The MCA is working hard to get the balance right between flexibility, pragmatism and consistency. In summary, there has been tremendous progress in the last couple of years and I expect even more progress as we approach the end of this decade. As the UK prepares to leave the European Union, the shipping industry, which has always been truly international in its organisation and outlook, can give other sectors confidence about the opportunities ahead. The UK flag, as epitomised by the Red Ensign and the UK Ship Register, has a bright future, with government and industry working together to make it a success story that continues to raise the standard. n Michael Parker became the first nonexecutive chairman of the MCA in January 2017, after a long and distinguished career in commercial shipping.

Much more competitive pay rates, coupled with modernised and flexible working patterns, terms and conditions have been put in place

Teaching children about the sea

When the ship comes in Stephanie Zarach, maritime historian and writer, emphasises the need to foster a better understanding of ships and shipping, starting with the school curriculum

The maritime industry has become so streamlined in recent years that it is barely visible and utterly taken for granted Where did they come from … ?

ake an ordinary, everyday sitting room and dining room. Fill it with the usual paraphernalia of twenty-first-century life – a sofa, coffee table, television, computer, dining table and chairs and a rug or two. Add in a nuclear family: Mum is wearing a simple dress because it is summer; Dad is sporting chinos and a polo shirt; son Tom is in the latest jeans and trainers with a T-shirt, and his MP3 earphones tucked firmly in his ears; and daughter Miriam, wearing the latest leggings and a long stripy shirt, is engrossed in her tablet computer. There is a car in the front drive – a new Honda – and flowers brighten the garden. Got the picture? Then let us try a little test. Which of those items in this scene of domestic normality do you think was made in Britain? The mahogany dining table? Tom’s jeans? Miriam’s tablet? The television? Any other thoughts? In fact, only one of the items described above was made in the UK – the Honda car, in Swindon – but even then most of its components were imported by ship. All the rest, perhaps with the exception of the

flowers – always remembering that some of the tulip bulbs came from the Netherlands – arrived here on a ship. If you are not at all surprised by this, then you are probably in the maritime industry. If you are surprised, then join the club of which the vast proportion of the UK’s population are members. It is the club of sea blindness. The maritime industry has become so streamlined in recent years that it is barely visible and utterly taken for granted. The container revolution has brought enormous benefits in terms of keeping cargoes intact and greatly reducing the cost of transportation by sea through economies of scale, but this has had one unintended consequence: it has removed ships and the sea from the national consciousness. Whereas vegetables and fruit, white goods and clothes, mistletoe and wine and most of the usual contents of a household used to be seen lying on the old docks awaiting their onward journey, they have now disappeared into anonymous boxes. Jobs that were associated with docks have given way to machinery, and the ports, once the hub of a community with ships coming and going, have now largely disappeared behind security gates on remote sites. The fact that is completely lost to the majority of the British public is that without the regular flow of ships into our British ports, we would soon run short of most commodities, including medical supplies and fuel.

Why should people care about ships and shipping? We must care, because some 90 per cent of global trade is transported from country to country by ship, and trade with other counties is the lifeblood of any successful economy. As an island nation, the UK is dependent upon transport by sea for trade. The items we cannot

WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN

Bertha the Bulker discharges Canadian grain at Liverpool. From the author’s Bertha the Bulker and her Cousin Beryl Get Breakfast – the first in a series of little books for children.

produce and the items we want to sell to other countries are mostly imported or exported through our ports. There may be more mechanisation, but there are still wide-ranging opportunities for work in the industry that are little known. They include seafaring, engineering, technology, law, insurance, port operations and administration, coastal protection of the environment and borders, rescue services and fishing, ship suppliers and even chefs for ships. Careers advisers and parents alike are woefully unaware of these possibilities, and children have no concept of the industry. If the general public had a better awareness of the importance of the maritime industry to their health, wealth and standard of living, perhaps there would be a bigger push for the government to focus on policies to support it. The industry contributes heavily to the country’s coffers in the export of unrivalled professional services in insurance, international maritime law and arbitration, accountancy, classification, protection and indemnity, shipbroking and maritime education: in all these areas the UK, with its long and strongly developed maritime history, is a world leader.

How the maritime world adds value to the school curriculum It is difficult to persuade adults, many of whom have done with learning and are busy earning, that they need to look at something new. The best way to persuade a population to take the maritime industry seriously is to teach the young why it is so important, how it will affect their own world, and what opportunities it provides. School curricula are set and must be taught, but the maritime story of the British Isles can

enhance the teaching of science, engineering, environmental issues and technology. The study of the oceans and their ecosystems furthers knowledge of biology, chemistry and physics; information on maritime engineering adds a new dimension to engineering courses; discussing the damage that plastic consumption on land does to the creatures of the sea – and hence our food chains – raises awareness of environmental issues; and the uses of modern technology offer great opportunities to learn more. One example of such technology is the satellite-based GIS (geographic information system), which is now part of GCSE and A-level courses. This digital way to explore the world enables students to use vast amounts of data for their research projects, and makes geographical fieldwork exciting and much more in-depth. In maritime terms, GIS can be used for special topics, such as the story of the ill-fated Titanic and the location and range of ports and their supply lines. Tracking ships and their cargoes as they go around the world is both exciting and enlightening, providing all sorts of possibilities for individual projects.

A maritime teacher’s pack Knowing about ships, what they transport, where they pick up their cargo, the economics of the enterprises and the technology of navigation

… and how did they get here ?

Wall charts with silhouettes of ship types, quizzes and questionnaires, and group visits to ports can also be included

WHEN THE SHIP COMES IN

and weather prediction provides a better understanding of the globalised world. A maritime teacher’s pack, which will fulfil all these objectives, is now in trial. The pack will include small books, either printed or available on the Web, that tell the story of a particular type of ship: how it is crewed, where it goes to pick up goods, what goods it picks up, what happens to the goods when they reach the destination port and a description of the seas it travels through. These books also match types of goods to specific ships – a bulk carrier for grain and sugar, a container for jeans and iPods, a tanker for oil and so on. Bertha the Bulker and her Cousin Beryl Get Breakfast is the first in a series of little books written for children. Bertha the Bulker goes to Canada to pick up grain, and her cousin Beryl collects sugar from Brazil. Both ships voyage back to the UK, one encountering storms and the other seeing wildlife, before unloading their cargoes – which, one way or another, are processed into the nation’s breakfast. There could be innumerable combinations of these books: the container ship that delivers refrigerators and jeans: the ro-ro (roll-on roll-off) ships that import and export cars; the tankers that bring fuel to power stations and petrol to the pumps. The formula can be used to cover any type of ship including coastal vessels, dredgers, lifeboats, fishing vessels and passenger ships. The books will include ‘Did you know?’ facts, and can also be provided as black and white colouring books and adapted to any age group. Older children using them to teach younger children is a particularly good way for both age groups to benefit. Maps are also included, containing the ports relevant to each book and trade routes,

but these can also be provided using GIS technology. Wall charts with silhouettes of ship types, quizzes and questionnaires, and group visits to ports can also be included. Each pack can be tailored to a specific school’s requirements.

The maritime industry’s duty Why should it be the maritime industry’s duty to take time out to teach others, who are often not very interested in the subject, about the sea and ships? Because industries that slip the gaze of the general public tend to be ignored by government and politicians, who are then quite capable of making damaging decisions without realising the harm they do. With Brexit, Britain will need to enhance both its position as a trading nation and its welcome to all ships, while increasing its naval presence on coastal and border controls. The reasons for changes to the Register, better port infrastructure and logistics, and sensible tax laws for non-domiciled shipowners who provide employment will need to be understood and supported by the population. It is only the efforts of the maritime industry to engage with the population at a local level that will make that happen, along with a clear programme of information that fits in with the school curriculum. n For further information on the teacher’s packs, please contact Stephanie Zarach or Peter Dolton at berthaandberyl@btinternet.com. Stephanie Zarach, a writer and historian, has specialised in the maritime industry for many years. She has written for many organisations including BIMCO, HKSOA, the Hong Kong Maritime Museum, the Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers, the Baltic Exchange and Hong Kong-based shipowners.

RYA training for young people

Creativity, confidence and independence afloat Sara Mills, Communications Officer with the Royal Yachting Association (RYA), looks at how RYA training is shaping the future for young people on the water

Safety aspects RYA Director of Training Richard Falk explains: ‘Our purpose is simple: to promote and protect safe, successful and rewarding British boating; a safe mind-set and learning

Project Scaramouche: setting the headsail.

RYA

ith no legal requirement to hold a licence to skipper a boat in the UK, the RYA’s stance is clear – it’s about education, not legislation. The proof is in the pudding, with more than 250,000 people a year completing an RYA training course. Boating in general is on the increase, and there has been a steady growth in the number of young people taking to the water on a regular basis. Is this a happy coincidence? Or is there a broader picture? RYA training forms a pathway for everyone, from complete beginner to professional skipper and professional racer. It sets and maintains the international standards for recreational boat training, and also for those needing professional qualifications to start a career on the water. The courses form the basis for a large proportion of cadet training and inspirational youth schemes like the Duke of Edinburgh Award. And for many school leavers looking for maritime careers, RYA qualifications can lead to small-craft training of lifeboat crews, police officers and Royal Navy recruits, models that have been adopted around the world. With courses run through a network of 2400 centres and schools in 58 countries worldwide, there are hundreds of opportunities, including many ‘Start Boating’ courses for children. The idea is simple. The more competent you are at handling a boat, the more you will enjoy your time on the water; and by making boaters more responsible for their own safety, there will also be fewer incidents afloat. And the sooner you start, the easier it will be.

from others are vital if this is to be achieved. ‘Our ethos is one of proficiency and self-sufficiency learned through world-class training, supported by our publications, along with the comprehensive guidance and safety advice that’s readily available at rya.org.uk. ‘Rather than simply prescribing a list of what to carry, or what to do when things go wrong, we aim to help boaters avoid trouble in the first place by thinking about what we do and how we do it.’

Starting young Imagine sparking a passion for sailing in a child, watching that child’s confidence and independence grow week by week, and inspiring

The sooner you start, the easier it will be

C R E AT I V I T Y C O N F I D E N C E A N D I N D E P E N D E N C E A F LO AT

RYA

Learning to sail fosters both independence and teamwork.

RYA

Acquiring confidence afloat can start at a young age.

Many children say being on the water is the first time in their lives they have felt freedom like it

that youngster so much that they always want to fit sailing into their life. This is the ethos that sits at the heart of the RYA OnBoard programme, which encourages clubs and centres to introduce schools to water sports. Since its infancy in 2015, the scheme has introduced half a million children (aged 8–18) to sailing and windsurfing, and this number is growing. ‘In sailing, we know the life skills and positive attributes that sailing can bring a child or young person,’ explains Alistair Dickson, RYA Director of Sport Development. ‘The OnBoard programme really focuses on harnessing and communicating these benefits to successfully engage with teachers, youth leaders and parents to help them see beyond sailing as a sport purely for fun – to see it rather as an activity that embeds traits that can shape a child’s life, while having a great time in the process.’

Making a difference Grasmere Primary in the Lake District is one school that has seen sailing have such an impact on its pupils that they have made it one of their extracurricular activities. Headteacher Jo Goode explains: ‘We have children who have been absolutely transformed. They feel a sense of achievement from doing something on their own and it gives them greater confidence, which is reflected in the classroom, even, for example, not being afraid to ask for help or put their

hand up and answer a question. ‘Sailing changes so fast and it teaches them how to read a situation and deal with problems from an early age. That can be in pairs and communicating to patiently solve problems together, or as an individual listening to instructions and carrying them out. These are skills that constantly feed into academic learning and later life. ‘Many children say being on the water is the first time in their lives they have felt freedom like it. There are no mums and dads telling them what to do, it is all on them. The adrenaline and independence they get from being in control and making their own decisions is amazing.’

Sea Cadets In the 2016 boating season alone, 13,246 RYA qualifications were awarded to Sea Cadets and volunteers, helping to boost their confidence and self-belief, while enriching their CVs. It opens doors, rewards, and teaches them key life skills – but it’s fun, too. Cadet First Class Kacey-Leigh is just one of thousands of young people to benefit from earning internationally recognised RYA qualifications. ‘The first time I went sailing was pretty scary, but I thought to myself, “You’re a Sea Cadet, you can’t be afraid of the water”, and it turned out I was silly to be,’ she said. ‘I found a new talent of mine: I am now a level-four sailor, I have sailed offshore, and I have competed in several sailing competitions and regattas.’

Project Scaramouche We did it. At 01:39:19 am on Friday 11th August 2017, Scaramouche crossed the finish line of the Rolex Fastnet Race 2017. One blown-out spinnaker on the final stretch shows we were not giving up right to the end. This may be the finish line, but really this is just the beginning.

C R E AT I V I T Y C O N F I D E N C E A N D I N D E P E N D E N C E A F LO AT

Sea Cadets

RYA

Two Sea Cadets working for their RYA qualifications.

RYA

Behind that entry on the GCA Sailing blog there is quite a story, and RYA training had a major part to play. In 2013, Greig City Academy (GCA) set up a school sailing club to allow innercity London students access to the sport of sailing. To put this in perspective, 73 per cent of students who attend GCA are deemed disadvantaged, and 62 per cent of them have English as an additional language. Over the last three years nearly 1000 students have taken to the water for the first time. Today GCA Sailing has bases at the Stoke Newington Sailing Centre on West Reservoir in London with a fleet of six dinghies, and in Poole Harbour, Dorset, with a MacGregor 22 and a former Admiral’s Cup racing yacht Scaramouche. Their passion for sailing has grown and their goalposts have moved – so much so, that in 2017 a team from GCA Sailing became the first-ever student-led team to enter the Fastnet Race. Crew member and year 11 student at GCA, Shabazz said: ‘I’ve never learnt so much so quickly. Our hard work paid off and I love it!’ Jon Holt, head of outdoor education at GCA, is in charge of the project. He said: ‘I’m just a geography teacher with an interest in sailing. The RYA’s qualifications give children a framework to work within – a structure so that they can progress and get a certificate at the end. ‘For many adults, Day Skipper is a barrier and getting the ticket can seem like a hard slog. But these children are 16 years old. For them it’s completely different. It gives them kudos because it’s considered an adult

qualification, so it’s the very opposite. It’s aspirational to them. ‘There is no better example of open-minded people who want to promote diversity and promote giving young people a chance. They have the theory sessions and then they get sent out on the water, so it’s very real. Going through shipping lanes and sailing at night is hugely practical and requires great teamwork. ‘Having the RYA there is like having a reassuring big brother looking after you, to make sure things are being done right.’

Rona Sailing Project The Rona Sailing Project, based in Southampton, is one of the oldest sail training organisations in the UK, established for over 50 years. This respected RYA training centre aims to provide opportunities for young people to acquire those attributes of

Lawrie Smith with GCA’s Student Captain Montel Fagan-Jordan.

In 2017 a team from GCA Sailing became the first-ever student-led team to enter the Fastnet Race

The Scaramouche crew.

54 RYA

C R E AT I V I T Y C O N F I D E N C E A N D I N D E P E N D E N C E A F LO AT

a seaman – namely, a sense of responsibility, resourcefulness and teamwork – which will help them throughout their lives. Brid Barrett, Project Director, explains: ‘We ensure that our crews come from a wide variety of social backgrounds: from the welladjusted, to those in the care of social and probation services, as well as those in between. ‘We’ve taken over 20,000 young people to sea and given them the experience of a lifetime, greater self-confidence and a new perspective on the world. Apart from a dedicated full-time team of just four, the project has 400 volunteers. Their active support enables us to touch the RYA

We use large sailing vessels because they require hard physical work and cannot be sailed without teamwork

RYA

Children participating in the RYA’s OnBoard project.

GCA Sailing members sailing an Etchells class yacht at the Etchells Academy in Cowes, which is part of the RYA British Keelboat Academy and has tuition by former champions of the sport.

lives of a large and disparate group of people, all of whom, in their own way, significantly benefit from an experience at sea.’ ‘We use the medium of the sea because it is an unforgiving natural environment that provides a sense of risk and adventure. We use large sailing vessels because they

require hard physical work and cannot be sailed without teamwork, both on deck and down below. ‘All of this builds self-discipline, teamwork and tolerance. The “experience of a lifetime” can become a lifetime’s experience. We also give those with leadership potential the opportunity to gain qualifications to become watch leaders. From here if they want to continue sailing with us and give something back to society, they can become watch officers, then mates and ultimately skippers.’

Skills for life Alongside all the practical work, the RYA OnBoard team has been working closely with leading educational expert Professor Bill Lucas, Director at the Centre for Real-World Learning at the University of Winchester. Bill has looked closely at what sailing can provide for young people, and has identified six key areas: confidence, independence, creativity and determination, as well as the capacity for good teamwork and communication. These are all qualities that are vital at sea, but also important in every other walk of life. n RYA: www.rya.org.uk RYA training centres: www.rya.org.uk/findacentre RYA OnBoard programme: www.rya.org.uk/onboard Greig City Academy Sailing: https://gcasailing.com Rona Sailing project: www.ronasailingproject.org.uk

Seafarer training in the UK

Meeting the training challenge Kathryn Neilson, Director of the Merchant Navy Training Board, explains what the MNTB is doing to develop, expand and promote seafarer training

he Merchant Navy Training Board (MNTB) plays a significant role as the industry body for ensuring consistent, coherent and cohesive seafarer training across the UK, coupled with careers promotion through its Careers at Sea brand and ongoing career development through Careers at Sea and Beyond. Since the introduction of tonnage tax in 2000, and with it the officer cadet training commitment, the number of cadets nationally has increased from some 400 to around 800. Indeed, almost 1000 were recruited before the introduction of tuition fees and the considerable increase in overall training costs to companies. But now, we feel that the industry is at another turning point here in the UK.

The challenge

MNTB

The 2016 BIMCO report forecast an increased shortage in the number of officers; sponsoring companies say that the high cost of training UK cadets is stopping them training greater numbers and in fact reducing their numbers in some instances. The UK ratings workforce

continues to age and needs a new pipeline for those companies wishing to employ UK ratings. The issue of training-berth availability and quality continues to raise its head â&#x20AC;&#x201C; variably and at different times for companies and training management organisations. There is increased competition for young people as a direct result of a renewed impetus on apprenticeships by government and the developing impact of the apprenticeship levy. There is greater demand for seafarer skills, knowledge and expertise in ship management and related sectors ashore, and we still need to attract greater numbers of females into the Merchant Navy. The MNTB and its trade union partners Nautilus International and RMT, along with the UK Chamber of Shipping, have an ambition to increase the number of newentrant seafarers to 1200 by 2020 and to 1500 beyond that. A great deal of work is under way to achieve this, and to put a range of measures and activities in place to ensure it will happen. We are working with the Department for Transport, and of course with our highly respected and expert maritime education

There is greater demand for seafarer skills, knowledge and expertise in ship management and related sectors ashore

MEETING THE TRAINING CHALLENGE

MNTB

It is clear that we need to devise and implement new means to attract young people to our industry

and training institutions and the Maritime and Coastguard Agency, as well as the newly formed Institute for Apprenticeships. Together, we will make sure all the dots are joined as effectively as possible.

Officer cadets and ratings Firstly, we need to address the high cost of training officer cadets. Compromising on the unique UK cadet training system – which develops high-quality, skilled officers – is not an option, so we need to secure increased funding from all possible sources to help with this. The important Support for Maritime Training (SMarT) funding provided by government, currently £15 million per year, has been eroded in value since 2000, when it covered some 50 per cent of training costs. This has reduced to around 25–30 per cent today. The industry-supported proposal for an extension of the SMarT scheme – ‘SMarT Plus’ – requires an increase in government provision, which would result in companies training officers in even greater numbers, enabling the UK to claim a bigger share of the global market for highly qualified seafarers. The quid pro quo is that, in return for additional government funding, companies would undertake to employ their newly qualified officers for a sufficient period to enable them to attain higher-level certification. We have developed a sound economic case to show that SMarT Plus would increase the numbers not only of new entrants but also of officers with senior qualifications, who are highly sought after for both shipboard and shore-side employment.

And what about our ratings workforce, which continues to languish with reduced numbers of UK-based ratings working in limited sectors of seagoing employment? New rating apprenticeship programmes are being developed and implemented, covering deck, engine room, hospitality and on-board services positions. This will mean that the apprenticeship levy can be used to support training costs, as well as the Maritime Educational Foundation (MEF) not only providing bursary funding to shipping companies employing rating apprenticeships, but also funding a full-time post within the MNTB to undertake the apprenticeship development work, liaise with shipping companies, and encourage and support the employment and training of a new generation of ratings.

Increasing both quantity and quality Increasing the numbers of trainees, whether officer cadets or rating apprentices, will be compromised if we don’t have enough suitable training berths. Measures have recently been put in place by the MNTB to enable greater flexibility in the phasing arrangements of cadet training programmes, along with changes to the programmes themselves, to provide the potential for three entry points per year, rather than the two currently in place. Starting in the current academic year, this will spread the use of training berths more evenly through the year, instead of an influx of trainees onto vessels in the summer months. Other activities we are involved in are designed to develop the

MEETING THE TRAINING CHALLENGE

the coming months and into the next few years. The video was launched during London International Shipping Week in September, and will be distributed via major

MNTB

availability of ‘training platforms’ throughout the industry, not least the potential for several commercial vessels to act as training ships while operating around the UK coast and in international waters. Thus, we aim to increase both the quantity and the quality of training berths in preparation for the anticipated growth in the number of trainees in the coming years. There appears to be little doubt of an increase in demand for young people from many industry sectors across the UK. The high cost of university education may have been advantageous to the industry’s sponsored education and training programmes in helping secure good numbers of applicants over the past five years or so. However, the apprenticeship levy, the improved availability of apprenticeships in other industries, and the increase in the school leaving age are all having an impact. While these changes do not appear to be affecting the number of applicants for rating apprenticeships reported by companies, they are reflected in applications for officer cadet places, which have been proving harder to source and fill over this last year, in particular. If our ambition for an increase in new entrants is to be realised, it is clear that we need to devise and implement new means to attract young people to our industry – and to achieve significant growth in the number of female applicants.

Promoting the cause The MNTB has produced a new promotional video, The Sea ... or Not to Sea ... , which forms part of our innovative and exciting Careers at Sea campaign over

advertising on Twitter, Facebook, Snapchat and Instagram social media platforms over a prolonged period, supplementing the increased efforts of cadet sponsoring companies and organisations to attract greater numbers of young people into the industry. We are also increasing our efforts to bring this to the attention of young females, to show them that a career at sea can be for them. There is much to be done to make sure the UK not only continues to play a part in seafarer employment, training, development and progression opportunities, but significantly ups its game and increases the numbers of highly expert and skilled ratings and officers at all levels of certification. In turn, this feeds in to the shore-based complement of seafarers who provide their expertise to ship management companies and the whole range of related sectors that need the skills seafarers bring, to equip those organisations to meet the demands of competitive business. We are ambitious, we are on the case. n Kathryn Neilson took up the post of MNTB Director in August 2017.

Innovating for a better world, empowered by satellites

Lifting the fog from the horizon How satellites can help to end â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;sea blindnessâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; The Satellite Applications Catapult is an independent innovation and technology company, created to foster growth across the economy through the exploitation of space. l It supports small and medium-sized

enterprises (SMEs) who are developing products and services using space data and technologies. l It works with companies that have innovative

ideas to help their customers, but may not have expertise in the use of space services. l It works globally with organisations across

many sectors.

To find out more, visit:

sa.catapult.org.uk

The world’s oceans and coastlines are an essential and valuable resource. The shipping industry, fisheries, tourism and the oil and gas sector all depend on the long-term, sustainable development of the marine environment. The Satellite Applications Catapult understands the importance of satellite data and services for the maritime sector and identified the ‘Blue Economy’ as one of its four strategic programmes. We identify and create opportunities to embed satellite technology in services and solutions that enable sustainable growth. The Catapult’s role is to understand the challenges faced by those working in this very broad environment, raise awareness of satellite capabilities and collaborate with potential customers and the wider satellite sector to develop innovative solutions in space and in downstream applications. Blue Growth strategies enable traditional maritime-related industries, such as shipping, fishing and offshore oil and gas, to thrive whilst supporting innovative opportunities in fast-growing sectors such as aquaculture, marine biotechnology, renewable energy, seabed mining, and leisure and tourism. Small start-up companies are entering this exciting sector to offer the benefits of space-based sensors and the resultant datasets to an ever-increasing range of supply chain specialists and end-users. In the largely unknown vast ocean terrain, game-changing services, such as the satellite Automatic Identification System (AIS) synthetic aperture radar (SAR), offer previously unavailable ship and asset

Catapult focus:

tracking capabilities that underpin the intelligence gathering requirements needed to support Blue Growth.

l S ustainable fisheries – Collaborating on a number of initiatives that fuse numerous satellite and archive data sources including satellite positioning, earth observation and vessel data, applying advanced computer algorithms to provide an accurate, reliable and near real-time picture of human activity on the oceans.

l Smart ships, offshore asset monitoring and maritime cybersecurity – Our data integration and situational awareness platform brings together data acquisition, data management, data analysis, visualisation and interactive design in a reusable technology, and will be available for UK businesses to rapidly prototype and deliver solutions. The team is also exploring new challenges for data transfer and cybersecurity at sea in the era of smart and increasingly autonomous ships l P ort and hinterland development – We are exploring opportunities for satellite capabilities to support operational efficiency and monitoring of the environmental impact of ports, including end-to-end container tracking, scheduling and connectivity with hinterland transport networks (rail, freight and airports). l C oastal monitoring and protection – Our activities support environmental impact assessment and sustainable economic growth. We are working with companies providing satellite services to support coastal and littoral zone development, including satellite bathymetry, marine habitat mapping, coastal change detection, and flooding and erosion modelling. The team is also exploring opportunities for the provision of services to the leisure marine industry and environmental services to support coastal infrastructure management, from power stations to offshore wind farms.

Background photo: NASA. Satellite photo: ESA/ATG medialab

l Enhancing aquaculture operations – Working with partners to support research and data visualisation for aquaculture development, including possible offshore installations, and exploring the potential to integrate satellite services for agriculture with aquaculture to develop enhanced coastal environmental monitoring.

PORTLAND PORT UK

Portland Harbour is located just off the English Channel. Its close proximity to some of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, its sheltered location and the benefit of being one of the worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest man made harbours has provided the port with an enviable reputation in the maritime industry. The former Royal Navy dockyard was taken over by Portland Port in 1996 and has developed into a thriving and expanding commercial hub. The port offers a number of vessel services as well as being experienced in the handling of dry and liquid bulk cargoes, cruise ships and ship repairs.

WWW.PORTLAND-PORT.CO.UK

ÂŠ STEVE BRADBURN

Pew supports the work of the Maritime Foundation and those protecting and conserving our oceans. To learn more about the work of The Pew Trusts, please visit: pewtrusts.org/uk

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THE ASSOCIATION OF WRENS SALUTES THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE WOMEN’S ROYAL NAVAL SERVICE supply, cook, steward, writer, pay, shorthand, tailoress, parachute-packer, night-porter, signals, wireless-telegraphist, air, boat, transport-mechanic, m.t.driver, despatch-rider, torpedoman, degausser, boom-defence, pigeon-handler, regulator, postman, intelligence, net-defence-repair, messenger, boats-crew, cox’n, bowman, stoker, armourer, painter, cine-op, radar-plotter, boarding-officer, coder, cypher-officer, telephonist, sickberth-attendant, gardener, met-observer, range-assessor, welfare, dental-nurse, stores-victualling, clothing, air, education, photographer, special-duties-Y, hygienist, stores-accountant, family-services,

ARE YOU A SERVING OR RETIRED UK SEAFARER? Seafarer Support is a free confidential telephone and online referral service helping to support serving and former UK seafarers and their families in times of need

diver, engineering-mechanic,operations, artificer-apprentice, and many others.

0800 121 4765

1917-19 & 1939-1993

THEY PAVED THE WAY FOR WOMEN SERVING TODAY IN THE ROYAL NAVAL SERVICES

 WRN S

100

www.seafarersupport.org

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@seafarersupport

BS&F – NEW EDITIONS FOR 2017 FROST

ion for Watch

n ECDIS, which has plication of the basic ave been retained in hance the section on adjunct to the use of

ng the voyage safely nd answers with all

ained as they are not but cover a topic in tain competence due now available.

for

Practical Navigation for Officers of the Watch

the Watch replaced t extended the scope the requirements of raining Certification e of charts and other ructions, visual and estial bodies for the ng.

Practical Navigation Officers of the Watch

ISBN 978-1-84927-064-9

A. FROST, b.Sc., MASTeR MARineR

23/09/2016 11:02:59

A comprehensive guide to the principles and practice of navigation, taking the student from the basics to degree level.

An in-depth look at the fundamentals of meteorology, ideal for professional seafarers and degree students.

SO N

& FERGU

N, D. LT

Founded in 1832, Brown, Son & Ferguson continues to provide the worlds’ merchant navies with Log Books, Ships’ Stationery and Technical Manuals. Our titles cover a range of nautical subjects including Seamanship, Maritime Law, Navigation, and Meteorology. Every year we produce Brown’s Nautical Almanac, this year is the 141st edition and it is still regarded as ‘The Sailors Bible’ by our customers around the world.

A guide to the essentials of seamanship, and the everyday deckwork involved in the running of a ship.

2 nd Edition. Updated, expanded and re-illustrated, with new modules covering both ECDIS and ARPA.

9 781849 270649

Providing Nautical publications for over 180 years. Distributors in over 30 countries worldwide. website: www.skipper.co.uk e-mail: info@skipper.co.uk telephone: 0141 883 0141

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BECOME A SEA CADETS BENEFACTOR and help launch teenagers for life today In a changing often overwhelming world, too many teenagers are getting lost in life. As a Sea Cadets Benefactor you can help them to develop into resilient, confident young people, who can launch well in life, whatever their background. Benefactors club membership is ÂŁ1,000 per year. For more information about the programme and all the benefits of joining please contact:

Samantha Shaw, Partnerships Team t: 020 7654 7006 m: 07799 657410 e: sshaw@ms-sc.org w: sea-cadets.org/benefactors Patron: HM The Queen Marine Society & Sea Cadets, a charity registered in England and Wales 313013 and in Scotland SC037808

SC Maritime Media ad (130x185mm) v2.indd 1

20/10/2017 15:44

THE INTERNATIONAL MEMORIAL FOR

THE BATTLE OF THE ATLANTIC 1939 –45

“The Battle of the Atlantic was the dominant factor all through the war. Never for one moment could we forget that everything happening elsewhere, on land, at sea, or in the air, depended ultimately on its outcome.” – Winston Churchill

The Battle of the Atlantic was the most important campaign of the Second World War. On all sides, it cost the lives of 32,000 merchant and naval sailors, and over 2,000 ships were sunk. Despite its significance, it has no overall memorial in the UK.

Find out how you or your organisation can contribute to the Memorial project: VISIT OUR WEBSITE:

The International Memorial for the Battle of the Atlantic project has been registered as a charity, with a board of trustees chaired by Vice Admiral Mike Gretton cb cvo, to create a waterfront memorial in Liverpool, the location of the UK command headquarters. An important educational role is envisaged for the memorial, aided by collaboration with Merseyside Maritime Museum. Architects Donald Insall Associates and sculptor Paul Day have been selected to complete the memorial, with a target date of May 2019. Pump-priming funds are being sought now, and the main fundraising campaign for the £2M project is expected to begin by the end of 2017.

www.battleofatlanticmemorial.org

n Creating media interest in the sea ighlighting the economic n H importance of maritime activity

n Remembering seafarers lost at sea n Working with like-minded organisations www.bmcf.org.uk

ÂŠ Oceana / Juan Cuetos

ringing maritime knowledge n B and skills to the young