Dear members, friends and supporters of SUT. Many thanks once more to everyone who’s rejoined the Society, individual or Corporate, in recent weeks. We very much appreciate your faith in us, especially in the challenging times we’ve all been through. We’ll continue to work hard to provide value to our members, even if much of the interaction for now still needs to be virtual rather than face to face. Members still outstanding at the end of September will be deleted from the database so do please respond to Jane if you haven’t already.
It’s good to see that our Perth, Australia branch is already able to carry out some face to face meetings and we look forward to when this can be rolled out across the whole of the SUT family.
In the meantime we’ll continue with our regular webinars and podcast, and our committees and Branches are meeting very effectively online. Forthcoming podcasts cover autonomous underwater warfare, salvage and decommissioning, & offshore wind with more always under preparation.
Many of you know that I have a strong interest not only in underwater technology, but in how we transition to a sustainable economy, learn to value a biologically diverse & healthy marine environment and to benefit from what I like to call ‘Vitamin Sea’. To that end, I’ve accepted the offer to become the next CEO of the Pembrokeshire Coastal Forum in South Wales – an opportunity for me to help my home region adapt to changing climate, rising seas, the transition to offshore renewable energy – and combine all that with Pembrokeshire’s successful coastal tourism, outdoor pursuits & agriculture industry, whilst influencing policy makers and funding agencies.
I’ve submitted my notice to finish my term as SUT CEO with effect from the SUT AGM on 14th December 2020, and will work with my excellent staff, our Executive and Council to ensure an orderly transition. If any of our members might be interested in being my successor please contact our Honorary Secretary David Brookes, if you don’t have his details contact me or any of the staff and we’ll pass on his email address.
It certainly won’t be the last of me and SUT – I’ll continue to be a member of several committees and working groups, will honour existing commitments to serve on conference panels and chair external meetings, and will assist my successor, when appointed, in taking up his or her duties.
I’d like to thank you all for your support, friendship and laughter over the last three and a half years. SUT has a well-earned international reputation as a politically neutral, well-informed source of expertise and knowledge about many aspects of working in an underwater environment. We’re still growing overseas, we continue to support students, provide input to policy development, share knowledge and even in these strange COVID times have tried hard to maintain regular contact with our members, in part through the weekly podcast and fortnightly webinars.
It’s still three months away so I’ll be working as normal, and will update you with more news nearer the date on succession planning and who does what as we move into 2021.
Dear members and supporters of SUT – it’s hard to believe that it’s already September. Thanks to everyone who’s renewed their subscriptions, Jane is working hard to chase up those that are left. Don’t forget that we do have a hardship scheme in place to assist members who’d like to renew but have been laid off work by Corporate Members, or who are individual members unable to find contracts in the present downturn – contact me or Jane Hinton directly if you’d like to request a free membership on the scheme for 2020-21.
On Friday 4th September we said farewell to long-serving SUT Staff Member Cheryl Ince. She joined us way back in April 2004, and many of you will have met Cheryl at SUT events, trade shows, and meetings. Once COVID restrictions are over we look forward to meeting Cheryl to give her a belated warm send-off on behalf of colleagues and members – if anyone would like me to pass on messages to her I can happily do so.
We also welcome Aberdeen-based events manager Jacqui Adams back part-time initially from furlough. It’s still too early to know at what point we can resume anything like ‘business as usual’ but Jacqui is looking at how we ensure events and training can be held online until we can again meet safely face to face. We’re working hard on getting SUT in good shape for the coming months.
Don’t forget to tune-in to the Underwater Technology Podcast via your usual supplier, and our fortnightly webinars are available on the YouTube Channel ‘SUTMedia’ for free viewing. We’re always interested in new content for any of our outreach activities so please get in touch if you’ve something to share with our members.
I would first like to thank everyone among our individual and corporate membership who has already renewed their membership for 2020-21 – it’s heartening that even in these difficult times, we are seeing a high rate of renewal which will enable us to carry on the life of SUT, support student scholarships and continue the work of our committees and special interest groups. If you’ve not yet renewed, please consider doing so – I believe we offer excellent value for money and there are affordable direct debit options for those who prefer not to pay in a single lump. Note also we have a ‘hardship scheme’ to offer free membership to our supporters not in a position to pay this year due to redundancy or lack of contract work – contact me or Jane Hinton directly if this can be of benefit to you.
For those members who have been able to take the extra step of becoming ‘Patron’ supporters I extend an additional level of thanks, as the funding you provide makes a real difference in what our Society can set out to do.
Coronavirus continues to impact the Society all across the world, with the majority of Branches still not able to hold face to face meetings, events and training courses. This has encouraged us to move quickly in developing online means to stay in touch with and inform our members, and we’ve seen a healthy level of support for our online webinars and particular the weekly Underwater Technology Podcast, which already has some 3500 downloads and rising steadily. Volunteers for interview are always required so I can keep up the weekly schedule – if you are working in any area of SUT interest (or likely future interest), message me and we can arrange an online interview.
Last week’s podcast was a fascinating discussion with aquanaut Dr Jon Copley, one of the relatively few humans who has been fortunate to dive to the deep ocean trenches and mid-ocean ridges in human-occupied vehicles, Jon is a former SUT scholarship student who has made significant discoveries about deep ocean ecosystems. As well as talking with Jon about the diving and his use of ROVs and AUVs he makes some interesting observations about how we might be able to mine deep sea resources in future, given appropriate safeguards for the environment.
This week’s interview is one of those ‘future technology’ ones – I interview the CEO of a San Diego startup called ‘Blue Nalu’ who are hoping to be one of the first to bring cellular aquaculture marine food to market – in other words real fish meat, but grown from cells. It’s a technology that could change how the world sources marine protein, and also has implications to our members interested in offshore aquaculture (most farmed fin-fish are carnivorous) – another area of underwater technology that will grow in future years.
Every two weeks we offer an online webinar, volunteers for presenting that are always wanted too. Last week SUT Council Member and Houston-based Fellow Steve Johnson spoke on gas prospects in the Eastern Mediterranean, next week Professor Frank Lim, also a Council Member and Chair of our Beijing Branch, will speak on ‘Deepsea Mining: An engineering perspective’ – register free via the SUT Events web page. In most instances we place the seminars online afterwards on the SUT Media You Tube channel, except where the speaker might not be able to share their presentation due to commercial concerns.
SUT also offer the option for short ‘gadgets and widgets’ videos to be uploaded to our social media – an excellent opportunity for corporate members with a service or product they would like to highlight to our members. If you’re based in Aberdeen please speak to Jim Mann, or you can contact me directly.
Online training – we are almost ready to begin to offer refreshed online versions of SUT’s highly regarded Subsea Awareness Courses, with options for the traditional site visits to be offered later, as soon as access to the facilities is available. More on this in coming weeks. Our members have also been working on new versions of the course aimed at offshore wind & other renewables; and to the legal, policy and financial community in the City of London and other centres of activity.
SUT contributes of course to pushing the boundaries of underwater technology worldwide, and encourages knowledge exchange, which is still very active in lockdown. Last week I spoke online as a keynote speaker at the World Marine Technology Conference in Qingdao, China, highlighting the new offshore renewable technologies that are becoming available including floating wind, floating solar, and very soon a new offshore hydrogen industry. It was good to see SUT have such a high profile at the conference, with me featured as the second speaker after an esteemed member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
Closer to home, I represent SUT along with Moya Crawford on the advisory board of the Marine Alliance for Science and Technology Scotland, who this year will hold their annual science meeting online. If you’d like to submit a paper the deadline is 21st August, see https://www.masts.ac.uk/annual-science-meeting/2020-call-for-talk-abstracts/ – & note that our Salvage & decommissioning committee co-hosts a workshop during the science meeting.
As we begin to move out of the northern summer and southern winter, into the second half of the year it’s worth giving early notice that my colleague Emily will start to prepare this year’s Annual Report, and will be writing to committee & branch chairs asking for their input. We’ll also be asking members who might be interested in being elected to SUT Council to step forward – it’s a time of great change in SUT and other Societies as we adapt to post-covid working, and respond to the challenges of Energy Transition and the development of a whole new generation of offshore underwater technology. It’s a great time to be a member of our Society, and once again, I thank you all for your help, support and also your kindness to our staff & the volunteers who have kept SUT running while coronavirus has brought so much chaos to the world.
The SUT has a new collection of online offerings whilst business is not as usual, helping us keep connected with our members and the subsea community.
Bi-weekly training seminars, focussed on specific areas relevant to the wider SUT membership, starting 12th May, a 20-30min presentation with up to 30min Q&A, pre-registration needed, see www.sut.org/events/ for details.
Podcast, released weekly again covering a range of topics of interest to members. Listen to the podcast at sut.buzzsprout.com/ or via iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Stitcher & Spotify – search for ‘Underwater Technology Podcast’.
Many thanks to our those of you who have renewed their SUT membership for 2020/21 – we aim to offer the best possible value for money, and have not raised our rates again this year. You will already be aware that for any supporters of SUT who have been made redundant from corporate member companies, or for individual members unable to find work, we have a hardship scheme in place to gift you membership until 2021 to tide you through to hopefully better times. Apply via me, or Jane Hinton.
In these challenging times, Members willing to give additional resources to SUT are incredibly valuable to us, and genuinely helping to make a difference. We have a SUT Patrons Scheme for those in a position to make an additional contribution to the Society. I’d like to thank our first SUT Patrons by name – Tony Globe, Mick Cook,Professor Gwyn Griffiths, and Professor Ralph Rayner. Each has provided not only their time, effort, and invaluable support to SUT over the years, but now also additional help to aid our work supporting, informing, and advocating for our members.
So how are we staying active while the world deals with COVID-19? We’ve been able to offer a much-expanded presence online, with many of you are already tuning in to the weekly podcast via sut.buzzsprout.com where we’ll soon pass 3000 downloads, plus a large number of streamed episodes, covering a wide range of subjects, with many more on the way – I’m always looking for new interviewees so get in touch if you’d like to be listened to by our international audience.
At the time of writing, 46% of downloads are UK, 12% rest of Europe, 24% North America (almost half from Canada), 10% Australia, 5% Asia, 3% rest of the world mainly Argentina, Brazil, and Nigeria.
Our fortnightly webinars and online training sessions are also popular, with the webinars uploaded on the SUT YouTube channel (SUT Media) which used to be hardly used, but now receives a healthy number of visits.
The latest playlist we have added to the YouTube channel is a ‘Gadgets and Widgets’ section thanks to Jim Mann and colleagues in Aberdeen. These are short, snappy videos no more than 10-12 minutes from our member companies promoting their products and services. The first two online are from Impact Subsea and Zupt, I’ve just received extras from SMD, and we’ll populate the channel over the coming weeks. Contact Jim or myself for more details.
Older footage on the YouTube channel includes a selection of the school’s Christmas lectures and the SUT Careers video that was made back in the ‘Ian Gallett era’. We’re working hard to bring it all up to date, so please subscribe to the channel to see the latest uploads.
We’re putting the finishing touches on a new Members’ Forum where you’ll be able to connect with other SUT members, subscribe to lists about your areas of interest, and create your own. We are also intending to launch a version of the ‘SUT Phoenix’ programme previously offered by our Perth Branch – a space where members who’ve been laid off work, faced other difficulties, or need support can get advice, stay up to date on new technologies, learn about job vacancies and generally help look after one another as our sector goes through one the cycles of contraction that afflicts us from time to time.
Energy Transition is of course a very hot topic now, and we’ll be ensuring that SUT is well placed for our members to learn about offshore hydrogen, floating wind & solar, tidal stream, and other energy resources.
On 23rd July SUT Council meets online, where your representatives will be working with the Executive and myself to chart our course through the coming months. It may still be a little while before we can resume full ‘business as usual’ with regular face to face events and training, but we’re learning fast, adapting to the new situation, and hope that you’ll enjoy being SUT Members as together we face the challenges of building a post-COVID SUT that is flexible, broad-based, and fun.
Dear members & friends of SUT – while the coronavirus lockdown is still in place in the UK, we’ve placed most of our HQ staff on furlough under the HM government job retention scheme, so please be patient if we take longer than usual to respond to inquiries or answer calls. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible. Should you need to call the London office, you can dial +44 (0)7947 911992, or email [email protected].
The Society for Underwater Technology (SUT) is exploring a number of developments to continue to offer our members a range of benefits and services that work in line with the advice of governments and health agencies. From that perspective, we feel it will be quite some time before we can return to our ‘normal way of life’ and hold regular Evening Meetings, or Lunch & Learn events, and therefore we are looking to ‘adapt to deliver’.
One of our most well-received Evening Meeting formats is the successful series of Gadgets and Widgets. This is where we deliver nine presentations in 90 minutes. We believe that this ethos could work in the current circumstances where we adapt the concept to a digital media delivery. This could be in the format of a short video presentation on your latest technology, or a rolling PowerPoint-style presentation with a voiceover.
The SUT will offer you a platform to promote your development or technology. If you have a short (10-12-minute presentation) in a viable digital format, then please get in touch. The plan thereafter is to promote the availability of these presentations through our normal advertising media, as we would do for a typical Evening Meeting.
If you are making a short video style presentation, please keep your introduction on yourself and the Company to a minimum; include your name and contact details for further information in the end credits, but concentrate the bulk of the presentation time on the technology that you wish to promote. Similarly; if you are planning a voiceover to a rolling PowerPoint, then please incorporate a front slide with your name and a photo included. The final slide should be contact information for any follow-up approaches that the audience may have for you.
If you have any questions then please feel free to contact the SUT office via [email protected] or direct to [email protected] and we’ll work together to prepare your presentations for online broadcast.
What a difference a few weeks can make – at the time of writing, much of the world is having to close down to help fight the COVID-19 outbreak, oil prices are falling to record lows, and we are all being reminded that despite all of our technology & engineering prowess, nature is still boss, and can wreak havoc when she wants to. Even the UK Prime Minister and Prince of Wales are infected, so it’s important that we all practice social distancing, good hygiene and follow all of the advice issued by our respective authorities.
So first let me thank all of our staff and volunteer supporters on committees, branches, and special interest groups all over the world who are continuing to work from home and online, as well as those isolated at sea on ships, submarines and offshore platforms, to continue the work of the Society for Underwater Technology as an international Learned Society for Marine Science, Engineering & Technology.
SUT was established to educate, inform and transfer knowledge about underwater technology to our members, peers, decision-makers, the general public, students & educators. We can still do those things by remote means in the coming months, using the range of online tools such as Zoom, Teams, Webex, Skype, and others to continue to work together.
Keep an eye on our social media feeds including SUT_news & SUT_events on Twitter, the feeds of our Branches, LinkedIn posts and the SUT website to stay up to date on news & events that we will be streaming online. We’re working to get our presence on YouTube back up to speed as well.
Our face-to-face meetings for networking, training and social interaction can wait until some sort of normality returns, in the meantime there’s still a lot we can do to engage with one another.
Prior to lockdown, our UK Branches (London & Southern England, North Eastern England & Aberdeen) had all been very active with a healthy programme of daytime and evening events, we look forward to resuming the programmes online and eventually in person as soon as possible.
Events & Training Courses
We had been very much looking forward to playing a key role throughout Oceanology International in London in March, supporting the conference programme by chairing sessions, providing speakers, and hosting side-events such as the women in industry session as part of the careers programme. With OI2020 now rescheduled to 1-3 December 2020, we’ll play our full part then.
OI2020 is just one of many events that have been cancelled or postponed, including OTC in Houston, MCE-Deepwater Development in London, Eastern Mediterranean Energy Cyprus, All-Energy in Glasgow, & we had also been invited for the first time to an Aquaculture event in Aviemore, demonstrating that an ever-widening part of the marine technology community is keen to learn from our existing core membership about how to address technology challenges.
MCE-Deepwater Development is currently rescheduled to 15-17 June in London, if it still goes ahead on that schedule it’s the first of the conferences we’ll be back to, otherwise, the next one still in the calendar is Oceanology Middle East in Abu Dhabi from 7-9 September 2020. Our SUT Middle East Branch has partnered with Reed Exhibitions Middle East to support the conference programme and chair sessions – click here for further information. The Cyprus marine energy event is also scheduled the same dates, with All-Energy on 14 & 15 September. At the time of writing I don’t have a new date for OTC, other than that it will be in the ‘third quarter’ of 2020.
Our training courses, particularly the highly-regarded Subsea Awareness Courses (SAC) offered by many of our Branches, are powerful tools for knowledge transfer to new entrants to the offshore industry from experienced practitioners, and are significant sources of revenue to SUT, enabling us to exist and carry on as a Learned Society. Until the virus lockdown we were very pleased to see a resurgence in demand for training. These are now postponed but hopefully can resume in a few months time.
At the end of January we held our first SAC in Baku, Azerbaijan for BP and were delighted by the enthusiasm and energy of the attendees. Aberdeen held a SAC in March just before the lockdown, and Houston, Perth, Middle East and some of the Committees also held well-attended training courses and events in the first quarter of 2020.
As mentioned above, we’re developing new online methods of reaching out to our members, and look forward to rescheduling training courses once free movement is restored.
Subsea Awareness Course in Baku in January 2020 taken at OneSubsea / Cameron Baku
Defence-sector Autonomous Systems
The last event we attended before the close-down was Underwater Defence and Security in Southampton, where SUT was asked to provide insight into how industry has adopted advanced digital and autonomous technologies that are, in some cases, several years ahead of where the defence sector has so far moved. They are, however, catching up fast and will soon be fielding very capable platforms, including for the first time armed AUVs, with the UK’s First Sea Lord announcing during the conference of investment in large, armed autonomous submarines.
At SUT, our Policy Advisory Committee will be able to play a useful role in helping address the legal and policy gaps that apply to armed robots – the last internationally-agreed piece of international legislation that applies to such things was the 1907 Hague Convention Part VIII, focused on sea-mines and torpedoes. Now that at least one nation is on the verge of deployment of a nuclear-armed and powered AUV, and with many more on the verge of weaponising robots that have no submerged bandwidth to ask for permission to fire from human authority, it’s time for the community to work together to ensure that such systems can be operated safely, and with due regard for international law. It’s another aspect of what SUT can do as a respected, international Learned Society that isn’t always apparent to outside observers.
Launch of Armada
On 3 February I joined a number of SUT Members at the Science Museum in London for the launch of ‘Armada’ by Ocean Infinity. The name refers to the fleet of a dozen or compact remote-control survey vessels that will operate as a swarm for rapid offshore survey missions. It was certainly a glimpse at the future of offshore survey work, and as artificial intelligence and software improve, it is clear that the next stage would be a fully autonomous survey on a large scale.
UT2, UT3 and videos
John Howes does a superb job editing our magazine UT2 & the online version UT3, and is also creator of the ‘Subsea in 60 Seconds’ videos featured on his YouTube channel where he also provided some insight into the things we would have seen at Oceanology International this year with five short videos, click here for the first one. He also updates his LinkedIn regularly with a series of historic photos of offshore installations and equipment that are fascinating to learn more about – follow UT2 Subsea on LinkedIn and at www.UT-2.com for more.
New Members
I extend a very warm welcome the following new corporate members to SUT:
Allseas Marine Contractors
Dolphin Energy
EEL
Horizon Geosciences UAE
MarineSpace
Ørsted
Serica Energy
Wessex Archaeology
It’s good to see new members joining in the Middle East, where our Branch is doing well, and I’d like to thank Ørsted for hosting an evening meeting at their London office for the young members of the Early Careers Offshore Site Investigation Geoscience and Geotechnics (ECOSIGG) special interest group at the start of February and are the first of the largest offshore wind specialists to join SUT as a corporate member – it’s a sector that will continue to grow across the world and I expect that in future we’ll see them joined by companies that specialise floating solar, offshore hydrogen and other new energy sources as the ‘energy transition’ gathers pace.
SUT Journal
As a Learned Society one of our key outputs is the regular publication of a peer-reviewed Journal, ‘Underwater Technology’. We always welcome high-quality manuscripts for review and publication, and after a couple of years with relatively low rates of submission I’m pleased to see that we’ve got a healthy flow of input. Our editorial board is top rate, with senior experts from all over the ocean technology and policy community represented – though sometimes our editors get stumped when a paper comes in about a really obscure subject! If you are an expert on areas of subsea technology, and willing to peer-review articles please contact [email protected] who’d be delighted to add you to her list of trusted reviewers. The latest issue of the Journal, 37.1 is online for free viewing at https://issuu.com/sut7 and includes a ‘personal view’ article from Judith Patten MBE of the SUT Marine Renewables Energy Committee.
Around the Global SUT Community
Wherever possible we establish our overseas branches as separate legal entities to the UK branch, so that they are independent and free to raise their own funding, and conduct operations appropriate to local circumstances. Members are always part of the global SUT family, and all enjoy the same benefits and are free to attend any Branch’s events as if they were a local.
The biggest branches outside the UK are the US and Australia. Our US Branch remains very active and, despite the COVID-19 outbreak, are working hard to stay in touch with their members and to continue delivering events and training by online means. The US Branch has student chapters at several universities in the Houston area including Texas A&M, Rice University and the University of Houston and has strong representation from their younger members in taking forward the activities of the Branch. Recent events have included their ‘Champagne & Conversation Series, Edition 5’ “How it was, how it is, and how we want it to be – a male perspective”, offshore workforce engagement through modern technology & techniques, a one-day workshop on key elements of subsea tiebacks and an edition of the Metocean Awareness Course, which we co-developed with IMarEST who hope to run one in London later in 2020.
There’s a strong link to developing SUT in neighbouring Mexico too, with colleagues visiting Merida to help develop local capabilities, hopefully in time leading to the establishment of a branch there.
Perth Branch has a healthy representation on SUT Council too and are very well-engaged with the offshore industry community in western Australia. Meetings in the first quarter included an evening technical meeting on decommissioning, and the Branch has been working with Engineers Australia to launch a Subsea Engineering Competency Framework, though the launch event which had been due to take place on 25 March has needed to be postponed due to the coronavirus outbreak.
The Western Australia Defence Review did a feature interview with Perth Branch chair Rex Hubbard earlier in March, and you can see the video here.
We are just at the start of operations for the new SUT Branch that’s developing in St John’s Newfoundland, where they held an inaugural meeting a few months ago. As soon as the weather improves and coronavirus restrictions are eased I anticipate that our first Canadian branch will make rapid progress.
China Branch was very active in 2019 with Chair, and SUT Council Member Professor Frank Lim helping the Branch make substantial progress. The virus has understandably impacted activities very hard, but I know they are keen to get going again when they can and to try to, as a company under Chinese law, ease the ability of the Branch to recruit local members.
Middle East Branch is becoming one of our most active new Branches, with Adrian Philips and his colleagues holding events in Dubai and Abu Dhabi, and building good relationships across the region.
Norway are resuming activities after a hiatus, and now have SUT Fellow Sarah Elkhatib in the country – she was formerly a very active member of Perth Branch and brings extensive experience to help get local activities up to speed.
Singapore Branch is in a position to regrow, and are seeking new investment to help fund activities. Kuala Lumpur have been struggling a bit, and if we have members in the area who’d like to get involved and help get activities back off the ground there please get in touch. Our other struggling Branch is Brazil, where numbers have fallen over the last decade and are mostly from the academic community. Part of the task for SUT in coming months is to work with the less active branches to help get them back into shape.
Our West Africa Branch are generating a lot of activity now in Nigeria and Ghana, and beginning to grow an enthusiastic membership base. Our International Committee is working closely with our African members and has asked committee member Jim Neffgen to keep an eye on how the Branch is developing.
We’ve had many inquiries in recent months about developing activities in the Eastern Mediterranean region (Egypt, Cyprus, Lebanon, etc.) and as a consequence of the recent Baku Subsea Awareness Course, there’s a possibility that we’ll be able to develop a new Branch in Azerbaijan at some point in the near to medium term.
Awards
SUT make a number of awards each year, for outstanding achievement by members and allies of SUT. These include the Lennard-Senior Memorial Prize for outstanding individual achievement in the field of Marine Renewable Energy (selected by the Marine Renewable Energy Committee), the Houlder Cup for the Best Contribution to Underwater Operations (selected the Diving and Manned Submersibles Committee), the SUT Oceanography Award for outstanding contribution to the field of oceanography (selected by Members of Council), and President’s Award for extensive contributions to underwater technology for sustained periods, selected by our President.
Unlike many other Societies, our Fellowships are also awarded by Council, rather than automatically conferred for members with a certain level of academic and work-experience achievement.
I’d welcome input from members who have suggestions for people in our community we should be nominating for awards too – they are mostly issued at the end of the year (except Lennard-Senior, which is generally awarded during the ‘All-Energy’ conference) so there’s plenty of time to get those nominations in.
A new award we’re very proud to be associated with is the Captain Don Walsh Award, which we’ll be issuing jointly with our colleagues at the Marine Technology Society:
Captain Don Walsh Award for Ocean Exploration
Awarded jointly by the Marine Technology Society and the Society for Underwater Technology, this award recognises outstanding, sustained, international contribution to the development, application, and propagation of marine technology toward the advancement of ocean exploration.
Don Walsh (born 1931) is an American oceanographer, explorer, retired naval officer, and marine policy specialist. He and Jacques Piccard were aboard the bathyscaphe Trieste when it made a record descent into the Mariana Trench on January 23, 1960, the deepest point of the world’s oceans.
MTS is looking after the administration for this award, and they do so in a slightly different way to how SUT had traditionally made such awards by allowing people to self-nominate as well as have others put them forward – to apply click here, or contact me directly with nominations.
SUT-MTS Collaboration
While on the subject of how we work better with the Marine Technology Society, we have formed a joint working group where senior members of SUT & MTS are meeting online and exchanging information and ideas to explore how best the two societies can cooperate and work together where appropriate for the mutual benefit of our global underwater technology community. We’ll keep members updated on how the work of the joint working group is proceeding, and look forward to continuing to develop a good working relationship with a sister Learned Society that covers similar ground to SUT.
Patrons Scheme
At the London AGM in December we formally launched the SUT Patrons Scheme and our first Patron, Tony Globe, was awarded his laser-etched ‘Patron’ trophy at the London & Southern England Branch meeting in Woking on 20th February. We very much welcome other members who would like to support SUT’s work via the Ocean Patrons scheme – click here for a brief introduction or contact me for further details.
Chartered Marine Technologist
We had an initial flurry of interest in applying for Chartered Marine Technologist status but not much follow up since – if you’d like to learn more contact me directly for further information and application materials.
SUT Committees and Special Interest Groups
While we are at various levels of lockdown across the world, the work of our committees and special interest groups continues by online meetings. In the UK the International Committee and Marine Renewables Energy Committee will meet online in mid-April, and SUT Council and Exec will meet online on 23 April. If you’d like to join any of our special interest groups, which cover a very wide range of marine technology areas, please get in touch.
SUT Colouring Book
If your children (or you!) enjoy colouring-in books we have line-art versions of Rachel Hathaway’s drawings for ‘Can a Lobster be an Archaeologist?’ available to print off at home – download them for FREE here.
Save the London
We’ve been developing a good working relationship with the team behind the ‘Save the London’ project and enjoyed having the head of the Nautical Archaeology Trust, Dr. Mark Beattie-Edwards, as our guest speaker at our AGM in December. Long-standing SUT Member Tony Taylor has been helping the project behind the scenes, and if any SUT members are interested in helping secure resources to uncover the Thames Estuary’s very own ‘Mary Rose’ let me know and I can put you in touch with the relevant people.
I’d like to finish this newsletter with a repeat of what I posted online recently about our colleague and friend Dr. John Bevan, who passed away in February.
Dr John Bevan
Within the SUT ‘family’, we have a number of members who have served the ocean technology community with distinction for decades, and one who did more than most was Dr John Bevan, a member since 1969, who passed away after a long fight with cancer on 3rd February 2020. A strong contingent of SUT Members were present for his funeral in Gosport – one of the most uplifting & joyous celebrations of a life well lived I’ve had the opportunity to be part of. John’s friends & family, especially his wife Ann, had us in tears of laughter as they recounted anecdotes from extraordinary career at the cutting edge of developing deep-diving technology.
John had served SUT as Chair of our Diving & Manned Submersibles committee for many years, making a major contribution to diving safety through the Committee’s close working relationship with the Health & Safety Executive and the diving medicine & hyperbaric medicine community. He was a much-loved mentor, a repository of knowledge and history, and had also served SUT as Honorary Secretary and Member of Council. He was a recipient of the prestigious Houlder Cup for services to diving in 2002, and had been a Fellow of SUT since before our electronic records began.
John’s wide range of contacts from the breadth of the diving community brought SUT diving members from marine archaeology, film and TV, salvage and underwater contracting, military divers, recreational divers and the safety & medical community – his is the only SUT Committee where members might in the last 24 hours have been filming a scene for a James Bond movie, treating a patient in a recompression chamber, recovering a sunken helicopter, carrying out a survey of a coral reef, welding a broken structure, training new divers or searching drowned bronze-age settlements for artefacts. John’s wide range of interests encapsulated all that makes SUT special – a broad community united in their interest in underwater technology, and eager to learn from one another.
John chairing a meeting of the Diving & Manned Submersibles Committee, HQS Wellington 2017
Outside
SUT John had a prolific output as an author, manager of his company
Submex, editor of ‘Underwater Contractor International’ magazine and
more. He was the Founding Chairman of the Historical Diving Society in
1990, & one of the founders of Gosport’s Diving Museum. His books
included ‘Commander Crabb – What Really Happened?’; ‘Crabbgate’; ‘The
development of the diving helmet and dress in the UK during the 19th
century’; and the esteemed ‘The Professional Divers Handbook’ – the
industry-standard text for professional hard-hat divers.
John’s
historical interests stretched to guiding enthusiasts around little
known corners of London on the ‘historical diving pub tour’ of legend.
John’s professional life was extremely busy, and impressive. After a BSc in Zoology & Physiology from the University of London in 1967 he undertook a Masters in the neurophysiology of deep diving in 1970, having joined the Royal Naval Scientific Service. During his time as a Ministry of Defence Scientist he established a world deep-diving record in a hyperbaric chamber of 457m, approximately 1500 feet, some 90m deeper that had been thought possible and described at the time as the ‘hyperbaric Moon landing’. His further qualifications included Royal Navy Ship’s Diver, Saturation Life-Support Supervisor, multiple BSAC qualifications at the highest level, 100 hours diving time in submersibles including the Pisces & Mantis class, time in observation bells and the ‘Jim’ atmospheric diving suit. He used most of the diving systems known to humankind including SCUBA, rebreather, military spec, free-flow helmet, closed circuit, hot-water & electrically heated suits & had dived all over the world.
John breaking the deepest dive record during his Royal Naval Scientific Service days
After leaving the Royal Naval Scientific Service he worked for Comex then Comex-John Brown before setting up Submex Ltd in 1976, where John specialised in construction, inspection, maintenance, diving incident and accident investigation, repair, ROV operations, wreck investigation, salvage, cable burial, film production, expert witness and training. Quite a list!
He achieved his doctorate in 1990 on the
development of diving equipment, demonstrating his fascination with the
evolution of technology over the years and detailed expert knowledge.
John would often demonstrate historical equipment, and visitors to the
Diving Museum in Gosport can be assured of a fascinating experience as
they see at first hand equipment covering the history of human diving.
John’s family were key parts of his own life-support system and his wife Ann has played a key role in helping John develop the Historical Diving Society. SUT Members wishing to honour John’s memory are invited to make any donations via www.facebook.com/theHDS
Once the lock-down from the coronavirus is all over, SUT hope to work with others from the diving community to celebrate John’s life and achievements, and give thanks for his service to our Society, our Country, and to the safety of all who work beneath the waves.
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That’s all from me for this month – stay safe & healthy, keep an eye on our online feeds, and I’ll look forward to see you in person again after we’re all free to move.
SUT staff, volunteers and branches are asked to follow their national & local government guidelines in response to the ongoing coronavirus outbreak across the world. In the UK that means home-working for staff, and postponement or cancellation of events and face-to-face training courses until we have received the all-clear to resume normal activities. Similar restrictions are in place across the global SUT network. We are developing new online resources that will be rolled out in the coming days & weeks, and remain active via our social media feeds too. Stay safe, self-isolate where appropriate and we’ll look forward to seeing you all again soon.
SUT & COVID-19, Update 17th March 2020
COVID-19 is now active in several of the countries where SUT conducts events, holds training courses and has meetings for members. We have advised our committees and special interest groups to meet online rather than in person, and in the UK, for example, most events have been postponed or will be held online. We will quickly develop virtual events such as online seminars and lectures so that our work of transferring knowledge to our members and the public can continue during the coronavirus outbreak.
We will continue to review our activities to take account of the developing situation. In the UK most staff are working from home and can be contacted by their usual email address and mobile numbers. Branches should similarly review their activities to take into account the level of risk advised by local authorities & health professionals.
Where delegates are attending any SUT activities that are still ‘in person’ and are traveling from areas with active COV-19 outbreaks, local organisers will ask for documentation stating that the delegate has been isolated from sources of infection before the agreement can be given for them to attend the course/event in person.
Please check the SUT news page on a regular basis for updates.
Steve Hall, CEO SUT
SUT policy as of 5th March 2020:
In view of the current Coronavirus outbreak, and taking note of the UK Government’s present level of advice, SUT events, training courses and conferences will be reviewed on a constant basis by the CEO & staff to take account of the developing situation. Branches should similarly review their activities to take into account the level of risk advised by the authorities & health professionals.
Staff, SUT Members & delegates will not be expected to place themselves at any risk of exposure to infection over that incurred by the public at large in day-to-day activities, and if HM Government requests that citizens self-isolate, and avoid public gatherings, we will comply and either postpone such events or seek to provide them in an online manner where appropriate.
Where delegates are attending SUT events, conferences and courses & traveling from areas with active COV-19 outbreaks, e.g. Northern Italy, China, South Korea & Iran at present, we will ask for documentation stating that the delegate has been isolated from sources of infection before an agreement can be given for them to attend the course/event in person.
This advice will be reviewed and updated as the outbreak develops.
How they film underwater movies? Are lake monsters real? Where we would live if there was no land left to build on? and can a lobster really be an archaeologist?
All of these questions and more are answered in this unique collection of inspirational stories written by members and friends of the Society for Underwater Technology. The original book is aimed at 10-14 year olds, and hopes to spark their interest in the underwater world.
We have now rewritten a small selection our stories for a younger audience, aged 7+ with colouring pages enabling the readers to really engage with the stories and get creative.
The Society is passionate about nurturing the education of future generations, and is dedicated to encouraging young people to consider careers in the marine world. This colouring book is free for anyone to download and use as a fun learning resource.
The factual and fun stories have been written by friends and members of the Society, rewritten by SUT Publications Officer Emily Boddy. The chapters have been brought to life with quirky illustrations by artist Rachel Hathaway.
I would first like to thank everyone among our individual and corporate membership who has already renewed their membership for 2020-21 – it’s heartening that even in these difficult times, we are seeing a high rate of renewal which will enable us to carry on the life of SUT, support student scholarships and continue the work of our committees and special interest groups. If you’ve not yet renewed, please consider doing so – I believe we offer excellent value for money and there are affordable direct debit options for those who prefer not to pay in a single lump. Note also we have a ‘hardship scheme’ to offer 
SUT also offer the option for short ‘gadgets and widgets’ videos to be uploaded to our social media – an excellent opportunity for corporate members with a service or product they would like to highlight to our members. If you’re based in Aberdeen please speak to Jim Mann, or you can contact me directly.
SUT contributes of course to pushing the boundaries of underwater technology worldwide, and encourages knowledge exchange, which is still very active in lockdown. Last week I spoke online as a keynote speaker at the World Marine Technology Conference in Qingdao, China, highlighting the new offshore renewable technologies that are becoming available including floating wind, floating solar, and very soon a new offshore hydrogen industry. It was good to see SUT have such a high profile at the conference, with me featured as the second speaker after an esteemed member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
