The Merchant Navy Association Boat Club

Commodore’s Report July 2016

Following the adoption of the revised MNA Boat Club Constitution and my being re-elected Commodore for a further three years, the past twelve months has mainly involved building upon and consolidating the developments we initiated during the previous two years, and in developing working relationships between our SeaVue Maritime Safety, Security and Surveillance Scheme and other organisations involved in maritime safety and security, particularly the Maritime Volunteer Service, the Sea Safety Group of Coastwatch stations and with the NCI.

During last autumn our National Chairman Captain John Sail hosted a lunch on the HQS Wellington attended by representatives of the Maritime Volunteer Service, Trinity House, the National Coastwatch Institution and others to discuss the idea of forming a national “forum” for all those involved in maritime safety and security including of course the UK Border Force with a view to enhancing resilience around the UK coastline.

John and I attended a further gathering at the House of Commons hosted by NCI Patron Sir Christopher Coville which included Sir Alan Massey, CEO of the Maritime & Coastguard Agency, Sir Charles Montgomery, Director General of the UK Border Force and other interested parties, and although the original thought was that forum would probably determine a “national” approach to enhancing resilience in a “top-down” manner it’s actually begun to operate already in the form of a joint venture, encouraged by the UK Border Force and local harbourmasters, between the MNA Boat Club and the Maritime Volunteer Service in areas such as Lyme Bay and the Solent.

Quite apart from reporting incidents, potential incidents and hazards to HM Coastguard and/or to the Nautical Institutes CHIRP scheme, following the increased concerns regarding illegal immigration and a heightened risk of terrorism an important role for this joint maritime safety and security facility initiated by SeaVue is to liaise with the UK Border Force, and Project Kraken to look-out for and report any suspicious activity around our coasts and coastal waters.

Still on the subject of safety on the water our newly elected vice-commodore Captain Chris Woods proposed that the MNA Boat Club should produce its own DVD aimed at newcomers to boating, particularly those venturing onto the water for the very first time, probably in a hired craft of some sort. After investigating the likely costs and feasibility of producing a “live action” DVD we settled on producing a DVD compiled by Chris Woods and myself in the form of a “Boating Basics Guide” mainly aimed at those hiring a boat on inland waterways, and thanks to our membership secretary and webmaster David Hearn we’ve been able to produce these DVDs “in-house” and we have now actually sold a number of copies to boat hire companies operating on The Thames and other waterways, so I count this as something of a success for our Club

During the year, and following our affiliation to the RYA, we have recruited more new members, and thanks to the generosity of one of our members Bryan Dillon we now have our own dedicated MNA Boat Club membership card incorporating the RYA logo as well as our own logo, thereby enabling members to benefit from using this card when purchasing goods or services from those maritime businesses that offer discounts or other benefits to members of RYA affiliated clubs.

Not only have we developed our relationships and co-operation with those involved with safety and security at sea, thanks to our vice-commodore Chris Woods we have also consolidated our relationship with the Norfolk & Suffolk Boating Association, (The NSBA) which has a total membership including its affiliated clubs of over 9,000 with more than 1,000 individual members mainly consisting of boat owners who use their boats on the Broads,so we really are fulfilling our promise to ensure that the SeaVue Scheme embraces inland waterways as well as coastal and offshore waters; the MNABC is now affiliated to the NSBA and we have enjoyed some very nice publicity, including our logo, in the NSBA “Green Book” which is essentially the equivalent of Reeds Almanac for the Broads..

Another priority during the year has been the further development of the MNA Boat Club website which thanks mainly to the expertise and huge amount of work that David Hearn our MNABC webmaster and membership secretary has put into it is now being acclaimed by our members as an attractive, interesting and very useful resource; over the past year since my last report thewebsite has received over 7,000 visits, including almost 4500by first-timers, and a total of 67,594 “hits” Thanks again to David we now have a quite sophisticated membership database that includes details of members boats etc as well as the usual contact details etc. A suggestion from one of our members of including a “members forum” on the website is something that we might discuss during the Open Forum following the AGM

For the future, my personal ambition is for the Club is to develop a still more pro-active role for the SeaVue Scheme and to continue to further develop our working relationships the MCA and other organisations with an interest in maritime safety such as the RNLI, the NCI, the MVS, the NSBA the SSG and Trinity House as well as with the Nautical Institute’s CHIRP and MARS maritime safety alerting schemes.

Of course everything we achieve is the result of teamwork on the part of your committee, and I must pay tribute to the work put in by all the members of our committee including of course our national chairman John Sail, and our representatives on the MNA national council Tim Brant (our secretary) and Rodney Anderton as well as our vice-commodore Chris Woods, and membership secretary/webmaster David Hearn; I’m very grateful too for the support we’ve had during the year from members such as Bryan Dillon.

.Clive Edwards, MNI