Early on in my life I was working as a steward on day excursion boats the Balmoral and Waverley in the mid-90s. I fell in love with the lifestyle and did that for a few years ending up as Chief Steward. Then in the winter of 2000 as we were winding down towards the end of the season the Captain recommended I set myself up a career in the Merchant Navy. So I researched through the winter and in January I started training through SSTG up at Fleetwood College.

College and training at sea was fantastic and the comradery we all developed has resulted that we are still friends today 23 years later!

I was sponsored by the dredging company Hanson and spent the first couple of sea phases out on deck and I absolutely loved it, being with the lads chipping and painting, hosing down cargo spills and changing dredge wires. When I did make it to be up on the bridge for 12 months of sea time it opened up a whole new world and it really drove home what we were learning at college.

After about seven years I was given command of a small dredger and one day coming into Swansea Docks we were behind this behemoth of a vessel with a huge crane on the back of it and I really fancied the way it looked. I found out it was Trinity House that operated the vessel and a few weeks later I saw an advert for a Second Mate’s position, applied, and was lucky to get that. I did my Mates and Masters with them and sailed as Chief Officer. I was next in line for promotion to Captain when my wife was badly injured in an accident and I took the decision to come ashore to help with her recovery and care for the two small boys we had.

Cowes Harbour interviewed and offered me assistant Harbourmasters position and started training me as a marine pilot. A job came up at Trinity House for a semi shore-based position as Inspector of Seamarks. You are the only one in England and Wales and you go around to do safety inspections for all the ports and harbours around the country.

Then in December 2023 I was appointed as the Cowes Harbourmaster. Primarily your job is in ensuring the safety of vessel movements in the harbour and that all of the harbour users can get in and out safely. So that’s responsibility for traffic management, hydrographic surveys, arranging dredging, making sure channels are well marked, amongst many other responsibilities including ensuring an open port duty making sure we are open and accessible for anybody that might need to come into Cowes as a safe haven.

I’ve got a deputy and a team of harbour control officers that ensure that all of this happens. And we’ve also got a new marina planned that is going through the planning permission stages.