When life throws a curveball, take a different tack

Paralympian Hannah Stodel impresses WISTA members and HFW delegates with her impressive account of what it takes to be a world-class yacht racer

Four times Paralympian Hannah Stodel, who was born without her right forearm, gave a remarkable account of the journey she has taken to becoming a world champion sailor at a WISTA UK event in London. Stodel has won many medals for her yachting achievements, but at age 33 her journey is far from over and she is currently gearing up for her biggest challenge yet.

Delegates at the event hosted by law firm Holman Fenwick Willan (HFW) in London learned of her ambition to become the first disabled person to compete in the Vendée Globe in November 2020 – an around the world (24,000 miles) non-stop, solo yacht race. “126 people have competed over the years, and only seven are women,” Stodel said, adding that none of them have been disabled. “I want to be the first,” she added

Stodel, whose parents are both keen sailors, started sailing and racing from a young age and found that “it was a way to be like everyone else”.  She was bullied at school and given the nickname ‘Hook’ as her first prosthetic was just that, but through sailing her confidence grew.

Early in her career, Stodel competed in mainstream events, and it took a while for her to view the Paralympics as equal to the Olympics. She was won over by a fellow Paralympic sailor and has since represented the UK, along with team mates Steve Thomas and John Robertson in Athens 2004, Beijing 2008, London 2012 and Rio 2016.

She spoke of the endless training, funding and sponsorships, the embarrassing process of drugs testing (having surprise urine tests at 5 am), and missing out on normal life (Stodel has never been clubbing, for example). All take their toll, but she took a moment to emphasise the impact of having to gain weight in order to secure extra race time. It takes a bold woman to admit that they could not comfortably fit into the Team GB Stella McCartney-designed kit.

Unfortunately, the “Paralympics never worked out” for Stodel and her team, and they always came home without a medal.

But what makes Stodel’s story so remarkable is her belief in the journey as well as the outcome. She quoted Ralph Waldo Emerson: “For everything you have missed, you have gained something else,” and is the mantra on which she acts.

A disqualification in Rio (unfair said Stodel) and the fact that sailing is to be excluded in the Paralympic Games in Tokyo 2020 on the basis that there are not enough teams to compete (32 are needed and only 31 applied) has led Stodel to seek other challenges.

When she first applied to take part in the Vendée Globe, her application was met with cynicism.  But she proved herself a worthy candidate when in 2018 she became the first disable sailor to take part in the Sevenstar Round Britain and Ireland race, coming fourth in her boat class.

Now the Vendée looms, and in 20 months she will “single-handedly, quite literally in my case,” take on the round the world race.

She was asked how she would handle the large 60 ft and she admits to its challenges, speaking of adaptations and modifications to the boat, such as winches operated by her feat, as opposed to hands. She also fears hitting underwater rocks and gear failure.

But despite these challenges, Stodel said that she remains focussed.  “This is me kicking the door in for everyone else to prove it can be done,” she said.

Follow Hannah’s journey here https://www.hannahstodelracing.com/#

“Collaboration, capability and culture.” These are the conditions needed to achieve innovation according to John Pelton MBE, Programme Director, Jacobs Consultancy. Speaking at the Imperial Women’s Network Innovation in Transport event (6 Feb 2019), John was discussing the Innovate18, the legacy Crossrail Innovation programme.

John led an engaged audience of alumni, students and guests through several practical exercises in his interactive presentation. He discussed the conditions required for innovation to occur and the inhibitors. Outlining the unique Crossrail approach of innovation teams and champions, John explained how this allowed all individuals working on the project to become their own innovators, leading to a unique collaborative approach. The project provided the strategy and process for managing innovation in mega projects of the future.

Reflecting on the legacy left by Crossrail, John talked about the iP3 programme, a platform forging collaborations across the infrastructure industry ‘helping transform ideas in to opportunities’.

“The barriers to innovation include cost, time, disruption, lack of trust, risk or lack of sponsorship to name but a few. Take these inhibitors away and create an environment where collaboration is universal and innovative solutions and ideas will flourish.”

The audience, which included representatives from the construction, rail and shipping industries, then heard from He-In Cheong, a PhD student at Imperial College London working on integrating modelling platforms. He-In discussed the future of automated transport, which “by 2035+ will be fully machine-led and all humans will be passengers.”

“Currently 90% of all road traffic accidents are caused by human error therefore by removing the need for human control (and emotion) in the future infrastructure systems, transport will be safer and more efficient.” 

He-In and her colleagues at Imperial are looking at the smart cities of the future, designing systems that work with autonomous cars including vertical car parks, to meet the needs of an ever-increasing urban population. “The transport systems of the future will be smarter, more effective and better meet the needs of users. There will be less timetabling of public transport, which is currently very inflexible. The future systems will be reactive, and therefore more efficient.”

Our third guest speaker was Sue Terpilowski OBE, Managing Director, Image Line Communications and President of Women’s International Shipping & Trading Association UK Chapter. Sue began by outlining the ways that the maritime sector is already pushing the boundaries of innovation, for example, the introduction of container ships revolutionised the way that goods and maritime transport took place.

“These are exciting times for the shipping industry and there is lots of opportunities. Although autonomous ships will only account for about 30% of all shipping in the future, there will be many ways we can make ships semi-autonomous. And through great data collection and analysis we can make them more efficient and work better with the oceans’ ecosystems.”

Sue talked about some of the efficiency measures already in place, such as the use of drones to check quay-side maintenance in ports. She also discussed the innovative approach taken by port of Hanover, which rescheduled it shipping timetable to better meet the needs of the city. “Instead of working in silos, which so often happens in shipping – the city and port authorities looked at the overall movement of traffic round the city and port. Using smart technology and a systems thinking approach they identified ways to reduce traffic congestion and pollution in the city.”

The future of shipping will include innovations around; the type of fuel big ships use; increased use of sensors to gather data on weather conditions and logistics to enable enhanced efficiencies; and a greater systems thinking approach, looking at the industry and its impact on ports and cities as a whole, not on isolation. And finally but most importantly Sue believes in addressing the gender parity of the industry.  “STEM is so integral to the future of shipping, that with more women studying these disciplines, the opportunity is greater than ever to address the need for 50/50 split workforce and ensure a gender balance.”

Our thanks to alumna Salma Suleyman (Mechanical Engineering MENg 2011), a rail systems engineering manager with Jacobs for organising this event.

The Imperial Women’s Network welcomes alumni from Imperial College London, and friends interested in advancing women’s leadership in business. They host several event thorough the year.

Britain’s maritime sector has always evolved to keep pace with the latest technological innovations. Record-setting tea clippers like Cutty Sark were replaced as sail was superseded by steam-powered vessels, which could carry more cargo, further, faster than ever before and through all weathers. Today, in this digital age, we work in an era of satellite-guided ‘megaships’ such as the vast Milan Maersk, which can carry more than 20,500 shipping containers and visited ABP’s Port of Southampton for the first time last November. Accommodating these immense new vessels is just the latest adaptation that the ports sector has had to absorb, as advancing technology continues to present us with new challenges, but also new opportunities.

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IMO is continuing its ongoing efforts to ensure women can reach top ranks in the maritime sector, through its Women in Maritime programme.

IMO is continuing its ongoing efforts to ensure women can reach top ranks in the maritime sector, through its Women in Maritime programme. The latest event was a two-week training course for female officials from maritime and port authorities of developing countries, in Le Havre, France (11-22 June).

At the Institut Portuaire d’Enseignement et de Recherche (IPER), 23 female officials from 14 developing countries* had the opportunity to deepen their knowledge of port management and operational efficiency. They also took part in lectures on a variety of port matters including management, security, marine environment, marketing, tariffs and logistics as well as facilitation of maritime traffic, ship/port interface and concession contracts.

Delivered in French, organized visits to the Port of Le Havre and the Port of Rouen, enabled participants to experience for themselves the day-to-day operations of a port, with a view to applying this knowledge back in their respective countries.

The event was delivered through IMO’s gender and capacity-building programme, in collaboration with the Le Havre Port Authority. It comes as part of IMO’s continuous efforts to support the UN Sustainable Development Goal 5 to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls.

Demand for this course has continued to grow substantially over the past three years, however further funding will need to be secured to keep up with the increased demand.

Source: Devdiscourse

Would it surprise you to learn that on % there are as many Cruise ship captains as Airline captains. My first reaction was that this could not be accurate but investigation showed that World Wide there are 9 women cruise ship captains on the 314 cruise ships ( just under 3%) and there are 4000 women airline captains of the 130,000 captains flying (just over 3%). The UK is in an enviable position in both fields as of the 9900 UK aviators – 570 are women (just over 6%) of the 9 sea-going captains -2 are from Britain (25%). So who are these 9 wonder women who have managed to break through the male barrier and become the new Masters of the 21st century. The first shipping line carrying passengers started in 1818 but it was not until the late 1960´s that the modern cruise industry came into itself. So it has only taken 189 years until the first woman became a Captain on a passenger ship. Being generous and staying within the modern era we can congratulate society for accepting a female Captain 45 years later.

Swedish born Capt.Karin Stahre-Jansen had this honour in 2007 and in the following 10 years UK Capt.Sarah Breton, Swiss Capt. Margrith Ettlin, Usa Capt.Kate McCue,

Danish Capt.Lis Lauritzen, Italian Capt.Serena Melani, Faroe Isles Capt. Inger Olsen, German Capt.Nicole Langosch and UK Capt. Belinda Bennett who also has the added accolade of being the first black female cruise captain in history, started the change.

Not forgetting their hard work and climb through the ranks to reach Staff Captain positions putting them in an ideal situation to become Captains, alot has to be said for the change of mentality in the higher echelons of the Cruise Industry Management. In some of the shipping companies, women have become Presidents and Owners, paving the way to opening doors for female Masters. Fortunately for us women, we are finding barriers being broken daily in all fields and the shipping business is no exception!

Linda Reyes
WISTA UK – Cruising.

#Cruising #WISTAUK #Womeninshipping

At its inaugural meeting in London on 21 February, opened by recently appointed UK shipping minister Nusrat Ghani, taskforce chairperson Sue Terpilowski pledged that the group “would not be just a talking shop” and would give the government its initial recommendations within three months.

The taskforce will focus on how the UK maritime industry recruits women to the sector, the efforts it undertakes to retain them, and it will review remuneration, Terpilowski said.

“A lot of women enter the sector, but they just don’t stay. We need to find out why,” she added.

To assess how effective the taskforce is in its mission, the 30-strong group agreed that using a survey to map the gender balance of the UK maritime workforce – both onshore and at sea – is a necessary starting point for measuring the impact of change.

Nicola Good, executive editor Fairplay | 22 February 2018 Read the full article here

https://fairplay.ihs.com/safety-regulation/article/4297956/women-in-maritime-taskforce-to-map-gender-balance-in-uk-shipping