London, Monday 21 October 2024
The winners of the 28th Annual Maritime Media Awards were announced on Thursday in a ceremony hosted by Maritime Foundation Chair, Richard Clayton at Six Park Place in London. The Maritime Media Awards celebrate the very best in maritime during the past year.
The Desmond Wettern Award for Best Writer was won by the Guardian’s Karen McVeigh for the Seascape series covering the state of the oceans, from the urgent issues affecting the sea, to exposing the impact of humanity’s self-destructive neglect of the marine environment.
Jon Wise, author of The Royal Navy and Fishery Protection: From the Fourteenth Century to the Present won the Maritime Foundation Award for Best Book. A Certificate of Merit was presented to Professor David Bowers for Home Waters: Discovering the submerged science of Britain’s coast, and Richard J. King for Sailing Alone: A History.
River Action UK won the Maritime Foundation Award for the Most Influential Use of Social and Immersive Media for their powerful campaign on the pollution crisis facing our rivers. Certificate of Merits were awarded to the Blue Marine Foundation for their Convex Seascape Survey, YouTube military historian Dr Alex Clarke, and the Department for Communities for the Historic Environment Record of Northern Ireland: Shipwrecks.
Sarah Cunliffe won the Donald Gosling Award for Best Audio-Visual Production for BBC One’s Our Lives: Our Sea Forest, produced by Big Wave Productions. Certificate of Merits were awarded to Cal Major and James Appleton of Reel Soul Movies for STV’s Scotland Ocean Nation, and Dave Young of Windfall Films for Channel 5 documentary Why Ships Sink: The Zeebrugge Disaster.
Crispin Sadler and his Production Team were presented with a new award for 2024, the Special Recognition Award for Dedication Beyond a Single Challenge, for their outstanding National Geographic documentary series Deep Wreck Mysteries and Drain the Oceans.
The Royal Navy presented the Desmond Wettern Fleet Award to 815 Naval Air Squadron which provides flights to the Royal Navy’s frigates and destroyers, resulting in her aircraft and personnel being spread to all four corners of the globe. Lieutenant Luca Cavalli RN accepted the award from Captain Jon Holroyd RN on behalf of the squadron.
All winners were in attendance and accepted their awards with the exception of Jon Wise, who will be presented with the Best Book Award at a later date, and the Department of Communities, who are based in Northern Ireland.
The ceremony included a performance from the Vaults Trio, and the Foundation paid tribute to Captain Richard Woodman, a three times winner of Maritime Media Awards who passed away recently. The event sponsors and supporters were Portland Port, The Bristol Port Company, Langham Wine Estate, The Gosling Foundation and OMMS (Bristol) and OMMS (Southampton) Ltd.
Kathryn Neilson, Director of the Merchant Navy Training Board was the guest speaker, and the audience was shown two short films produced by Maritime Films UK for the MNTB exploring opportunities for young people in the maritime industry.
Photos from the Award Ceremony
The full list of finalists and winners from the Maritime Media Awards Ceremony will be published shortly.
About the Foundation
The Maritime Foundation champions the vital role maritime plays in the prosperity, security, and sustainability of our island nation. The UK’s population relies on maritime, with around 95% of all imported and exported goods transported by sea and the Foundation works to sustain the UK as a global leader in commercial shipping, the maritime leisure industry, nautical education, defence and environmental consciousness. The Maritime Foundation, a registered charity in England and Wales (286784).