London and South of England Branch Lunch and Learn – Concordia

12.00 – Guests arrive

12.30 – Presentations starts

13.15 – Presentations conclude

13.15 – Lunch

The Salvage of the Costa Concordia

Presenter: Captain John Noble

An SUT view of the Salvage and the technical issues and how they got round them.

John Noble

John Noble has worked in commercial shipping since 1962 when he joined HMS Conway, the famous pre-sea training school in the UK.  John served as a deck officer in the British Merchant Marine sailing with some traditional shipping lines including Blue Funnel and Palm Line.

After obtaining his Master Mariners certificate, John graduated with a Nautical Studies BSc (Honors) from Southampton University in 1977.  After a spell as a claims executive with Thomas Miller (The UK P & I Club), John set up the London office of Murray Fenton & Associates Limited in 1980.  Following the acquisition of Murray Fenton by BMT, in 1999, John served as Chief Executive Officer of the Salvage Association until 2005.  John’s practical expertise lies in dealing with Salvage, Wreck Removal and Oil Pollution having attended some 60 major casualties, including the HAVEN, BRAER, SEA EMPRESS, IRVING WHALE, HYUNDAI SPIRIT and ERICA . John is an experienced expert witness recently offering expertise in, cargo issues, unsafe port cases and salvage.

Over the past 34 years, John has worked with all of the major salvage companies and did serve briefly as an SCR before taking up the Salvage Association post.

Until recently John was an advisor to the International Salvage Union acting as the General Manager.  In the UAE John currently acts as advisor/mentor to Constellation Marine Services.

In his role as salvage expert John has been involved in the post incident activities that follow a casualty, including giving evidence in court, examining the effectiveness of response.  John has worked for and with government departments or agencies in the UK, Ireland, Spain, Canada and the EU Strike Team.  John is the Technical Editor of the Nautical Institute publication “Casualty Management Guidelines”.