An initiative to award innovation in maritime was launched at the Seawork European Commercial Marine and Innovations awards on Tuesday, with the Lifetime Achievement prize going to Robert Glen, who has spent 65 years living and breathing the industry.
Presenting Robert Glen, Mercator Media CEO Andrew Webster said: “As always it’s a really difficult decision to make, but one entry particularly stood out because of the length of service in this industry – 65 years is truly a lifetime of living and breathing maritime, ultimately building a very successful marine engineering company.”
He thanked all exhibitors and visitors who have supported Seawork over its 25 years.
The Spirit of Innovation prize went to Lifting Gear and Safety, for 100% recycled slings that are used across the board in marine civils and commercial marine.
Announcing the award, which was presented by Tom Chant MBE, Maritime Journal editor Debbie Mason said the product had won ’for being sustainable, reducing waste and above all, for safety’.
The product, Powertex r-PET Textile slings, also won the Marine Equipment and Materials prize.
The other ECMA winners were:
- Maritime Professional of the year: Keith Longman from Berthon (Sponsored by Farra Marine)
- Maritime Sustainability Award: Purus (Sponsored by Greenport Congress & Cruise)
- Marine Civils Best Project Award: TMS for Nuneham Viaduct Emergency Works (Sponsored by Maritime Contracts Journal)
- Young Person’s Development Award: Lily Oakley from Brockenhurst College
The other Innovations winners were:
- Deck Equipment: Atlantis Marine Power for its AnchorGuardian
- Electronic & Electrical systems: Sea-Flux, vessel management software
- Environmental and Renewable Energy: Hefring Marine, EcoSpeed solution
- Marine Power & Propulsion: ePropulsion, X12 electric outboard
- Navigation and Communications: Actisense, NMEA 0183 and 2000 multiplexer
- Safety & Training: Wescom Group, sMRT Alert
- Vessel Design & Construction: Artemis Technologies, EF-12 electric foiling pilot boat
Also announced at the ceremony was the launch of the ’Future Seawork Prize’ , which from next year will go to three university student projects who will be showcased at Seawork and awarded at the ceremony.
To launch the prize this year, three projects were nominated by MarRI-UK and selected by the Seawork/Maritime Journal team:
- Kaja Gorska from the University of Strathclyde with her project Data Fusion for State estimation of Autonomous Surface Vehicles
- Rohan Jha from the University of Southampton with his project PROPELLER OPTIMISATION USING A COMBINED ML-ROM APPROACH
- Silvia Calvo Benthem from the university of Southampton with her project DECARBONISING TUGBOATS IN SOUTHAMPTON HARBOUR
