Malcolm Vincent
IMarEST Awards and Medals presented The IMarEST 2010/2011 awards for twenty two technical papers
Recognition by one’s peers is always important, and the presentation of Institute of Marine Engineering, Science and Technology (IMarEST) awards and medals for technical examination results and technical papers is much anticipated. Twenty two technical papers published in the 2010/2011 session were considered for awards. This year the IMarEST President, Malcolm Vincent made the presentations to nine of these winners and additionally to winners of the John Blackburn Main student award, who were able to be at the ceremony in London in advance of the Institute’s Annual General Meeting.
“We were delighted that so many of our worthy winners were able to join us on an important day in the Institute’s calendar, ” says IMarEST Chief Executive, David Loosley. “I would urge members and non-members alike to submit papers to our technical journals, the sharing of knowledge was one of the reasons the Institute was established in 1889, and remains just as important to this day.
”The portfolio of IMarEST Awards bear the name of three men with close links with marine engineering – one actually died before the Institute was founded, but by what is described in our archives as “his munificent gift of £250” the Denny Medal was founded in connection with the Institute. The two others both worked in the last century and were members of the Institute for many years. We would encourage modern marine icons and organisations to consider lending their names to awards of the future.”
Professor Volker Pickert and Dr Bashar Zahawi of Newcastle University, who wrote the paper ‘Forced commutation controlled series capacitor (FCSC) circuit applied to stand-alone wave energy conversion buoys’, which was published in the Journal of Marine Engineering and Technology Volume 10, Number 1, both received their Denny Medal and certificates for the most worthy paper by a member or non-member published in the journal. Their colleague and co-author D Kalpoktsoglou was unable to be at the ceremony
The Denny Medal – the Journal of Operational Oceanography (JOO) was won by Dr Claire Spillman of the Bureau of Meteorology, Australia for her paper ‘Operational real-time seasonal forecasts for coral reef management’ published in JOO Volume 4, Number 1. Dr Spillman is based in Melbourne so will receive her medal at her local branch.
The third Denny Awards – the Denny Medal Retrospective Award for the Journal of Marine Science and Environment – were presented to Dr Wasif Naeem, Professor Robert Sutton and Dr Sarvat Ahmad for their paper ‘Pure pursuit guidance and model predictive control of an autonomous underwater vehicle for cable/pipeline tracking’. This paper was published in the first issue of the Journal of Marine Science and Environment in 2004, but due to an oversight the authors were not presented with their original medals.
Five John Blackburn Main Awards
The John Blackburn Main Awards if for a student (or students) studying in the Department of Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering at the combined University of Strathclyde. The Award funds the winning student, or students, who gain valuable experience working in a shipyard in the Far East for up to one month, witnessing the construction of a vessel and covers travel, accommodation and out of pocket expenses. At the end of the placement, and assuming the student(s) returns to the UK, the inner is required to write a report on the experience, with IMarEST having first refusal on publication in the most suitable journal.
This year there were four winners of the Undergraduate Award – Craig Peters, Kimberley Travers, Rachael Stevenson, and Fraser Little; and the Postgraduate Award winner was Xing Sun. “It was a great delight to have all five of the winners at the ceremony to receive their certificates, ” says David Loosley. “We wish them well in all their future endeavours and look forward to reading their accounts of their time in the Far East.”
About the names behind the Awards
Peter Denny, the fifth son of William Denny (1779–1833), was born at Dumbarton where the family had been involved in boat building since at least the middle of the 18th century. He joined his two elder brothers engaged in iron shipbuilding in 1844 and in 1850 he went into partnership with John McAusland and John Tulloch. Peter Denny was the first to experiment with iron screw steamships, and his success lead to a large expansion of the business. He was a considerable benefactor to the town of Dumbarton. The Denny Medal dates back to the 1830s and is the oldest of the IMarEST awards.
The annual Stanley Gray Awards are named in memory of Stanley Gray who was the Chief Mechanical Engineer at the Port Directorate of Basra during the 1950s and 60s. When he died in 1973 he left half his estate to be held by the Institute in trust to create the Stanley Gray fund. He expressed the wish that the money should be awarded via a scholarship or prize to wherever the Institute saw distinction in Marine Engineering. This remit has been expanded, following due process, to include Marine Science and Technology. The Stanley Gray Series of prestige lectures is also held to mark his generosity to, and patronage of the Institute.
John Blackburn Main CEng FIMarEST was a member of the IMarEST for 49 years and a Fellow for 32 years. Throughout his lifelong career in the merchant marine he maintained a passionate interest in the education of future generations of marine engineers. To memorialise this passion his wife and family made a generous donation to the Institute to establish a Trust called the John Blackburn Main Memorial Fund. This Trust offers scholarships to aspiring marine engineers, scientists and technologists taking courses accredited by the Institute, to enable them to advance their professional careers.
