7th Annual Western European SNAME Symposium

On Friday the 14^th of October, the University of Strathclyde SNAME Student Section attended the 7^th Annual SNAME Western Europe Section U.K. Symposium at ABS House in London. Committee members, Fotios Stefanidis (Chairman), Konstantinos Tsitsilonis (Vice-Chair), Nathan Tully (Secretary), Nikoletta Vekri (Communication Officer), Evi Kapsampeli (Treasurer), Ami Todd (Web-Master) and Jason Tan (Operations Officer) were joined by other SNAME members: Caitlin Gilmour, Ernst Van Kerckvoorde, Michael Clark, Scholar Wang, Adamadios Stefanidis, Alexander Karakassis, Giwrgos Spetsiotis and Ken Fui in attending the event.

The group traveled down on the Thursday night beforehand, with the majority of the group staying in an apartment hired out using the sponsorship money donated generously by the University of Strathclyde NAOME Department. Early on the Friday morning, the group traveled across London to ABS House on Frying Pan Alley where the Symposium was held.

Arriving before the 9 o’clock start, the group was greeted by the Chair of the SNAME Western European section, Nina Lilley who escorted us to the room where the symposium was held. Before the event officially began the group had an opportunity to introduce themselves and mingle with other SNAME members, some of who had traveled from as far as the Philippines.

Keith Lilley, the Vice Chair opened the day up with an introduction and safety briefing before passing onto Richard Pride, ABS Europe’s President for a formal welcome to ABS House. Dr Jose Matheical from IMO then presented the first technical presentation of the day titled ‘IMO’s Global Projects to Address Greenhouse Emissions from the Maritime Sector’ which discussed IMO’s project to combine resources and research from several companies across the industry to help share technology and reduce CO² emissions of the industry as a whole.

After a short mid morning break there was then two presentations on LNG carriers. David C. Dobson and Keith W. Hutchinson from Babcock gave a presentation on ‘Transportation of LNG by sea & the Design of LNG Carries.’ This was followed by ‘Liquefied Gas Shipping in the 21^st Century – Update’ by Andrew Clifton from SIGGTO.

After the two LNG presentations the symposium paused for a one-and-a-half-hour lunch break where all attendees were directed to a pub named The Water Poet where members had pre-ordered food from a set menu. This was another excellent opportunity for networking and mingling with professionals in industry as well as student members from other sections. 

After returning to ABS House after lunch, the presentations from the winners and runners up of last year’s SNAME Paper Competition were presented. The winners were Jacobo B. Arevalo Fueater and Rafael F. Domenech from the University of Madrid who had won with a paper on ‘Towable TLP Solutions for Offshore Wind.’ This explored the idea of a new system of towing a preassembled windmill out to the wind farm site and the hydrodynamic stability implications of trying to achieve this.

The runner up presentation was presented by Gabriella Hartle and James Harris from the MOD along with Akshay Bhatt from Rolls-Royce while their fourth member Andrew Cooper unfortunately could not attend. Their project ‘Amphibious Assault and Aviation Training Ship Class: Landing Helicopter Assault & Training (LAHAT)’ detailed a new type of aviation support and training vessel design for the Royal Navy. Both the winners and runners up were then presented with Awards in recognition of their success.

The day was the concluded with a brief presentation on the ‘Young Professional Future Activities’ programme from Blana Pena (YP Chair) and then closing remarks from the Chair Nina Lilley. Continuing Professional Certificates were then distributed to all attendees and the day was called to a close. Members of the Strathclyde section then took this final opportunity to bid farewell to new made contacts and take several group pictures.

Following the symposium, Strathclyde members took this opportunity to explore London as it was many members first time visiting the U.K. capital, so the group quickly planned a group trip to Piccadilly Circus in the centre of London. At this time in the early evening London was at its finest with the hustle and bustle of a city at twilight. After taking some pictures showing London at its prime, the group split up to do some more sight seeing, shopping and simply enjoying the social side of the city on a Friday night.

The following day involved an organised trip to the National Maritime Museum which was attended by SNAME members who attended the previous day and had been organised by Vice-Chair Keith Lilley. This was a much more casual event to the previous day, with no set agenda but allowed a final chance to get to know and gain advice from fellow SNAME members. The museum itself provided a fascinating insight into the history of the maritime industry which we all work and study in. From the first commercial shipping routes and vintage military outfits to modern day warships and cutting edge technology, everything maritime was on show at this fascinating place.  Highlights included ‘Miss Britain III,’ a 1930’s record braking speed boat which could achieve speed in excess of 100+ mph and the Ship Helm Simulator which several members attempted to varying degrees of success.

Coming away from the trip, all University of Strathclyde members felt reinvigorated with the maritime industry and Naval Architecture as a profession after meeting many new people of various different backgrounds with a variety of experience and getting to experience our National Maritime Museum.

Special thanks go out to Nina Lilley and Keith Lilley for organising and running the Symposium and to the University of Strathclyde, Naval Architecture, Ocean & Marine Engineering Department for their generous sponsorship of the trip.

Nathan Tully, (Secretary)