Relaxing with my Newfie hound
For those that don’t know me, I have been retired for the last eight years but professionally am a Master Mariner. After formal marine training I have spent the last 30 + years involved in oilfield marine operations and logistics primarily in the North Sea. Within that is a raft of verification and compliance, standards and training that I have experienced both internally and externally working with industry groups.
I live in Westhill which lies just outside Aberdeen, originally a dinghy sailor in my youth (a long time ago!), I’ve been sailing IOM since 2000 and a class measurer for the last ten years the last 5 of which have been as Snr Scottish District measure.
Like my fellow colleagues in Scotland I am a keen amateur builder with 11 IOM builds to date and I find the class satisfies both the sailing and carpentry genes I have in my body!
The IOM is a great boat to sail and its rules and measurement are relatively simply allowing the amateur and professional alike to exploit hull shape/fin/mast/ deck configuration. That is why the numbers and competitiveness have grown over the years until more recently when other classes have started reducing our numbers and popularity through simplicity, cost and availability.
I see this appointment as an opportunity to try and restore these key ingredients certainly around certification and measurement, that are starting to tie us all up with inconvenience and cost that will hopefully allow the class to move forward.
