They say we are never too old to learn and that is most certainly the case in the marine surveying profession.
Yes, we are in the middle of the training season once again. Recently we held a Certifying Authority training day for our coding surveyors. The contribution from the MAIB was particularly well received and thought provoking too. Paul Bryson’s case study presentation served as a sobering reminder that things can and do go needlessly wrong at sea.
Coming up is our next instalment of the Inland Waterways Working Group in Cheshire. UK narrowboats are right at the opposite end of the boating scale and require different surveying skills of their own.
A quick whizz down to Portsmouth for our super training day for yacht and small craft surveroys follows; not forgetting a one-day seminar in Sydney, Australia. The two day annual event in Glasgow, Scotland is next month also. And then there is the Marine Surveying International Fest 2018 – ah yes the Fest. What have I done? I am grateful in advance to my colleagues who will help me get through a marathon twenty-four hour online stint. One new presentation on the hour each hour for twenty four hours in this online festival of marine surveying topics presented from around the globe. What a crazy idea! Who thought this one up? We will have plenty of black coffee of course to befriend us. Do book your place at the Fest on 6/7 November and join us at some point of the day or night!
What I would really like to mention is the recent one day Symposium run in Mumbai by the IIMS India branch. My thanks to all for organising such a successful event. To share a stage with Dr Malini Shankar, Director General of Shipping and Secretary to Government of India, was both an honour and a privilege. But I was also delighted to be in the company of three elder Indian statesmen surveyors in JC Anand, Kapil Dev and Tony Fernandes. Present day surveyors in the Indian sub continent it seems owe these three gentlemen a great deal of gratitude because of their desire to share their knowledge and to mentor younger surveyors. It was indeed an honour to spend time in your company gentlemen.
Now, I may not be the most technical of people as you know, but the amazing amount of knowledge and expertise I have picked up these past few weeks is extraordinary, surely enough to qualify me to survey a very small boat? Well perhaps not; and you know what they say about a little knowledge in the wrong hands!
Survey well.
Mike Schwarz
