Starting off

First episode in the YouTube series “Merchant Navy Primer” is being edited now and will be online next week, but why did we even make it at all?

The idea started a few years back, when three vessels arrived at anchor off the coast to await sale. For myself it was nice to see some shipping in the area, but then the local newspaper ran an article on the matter and all hell broke loose. Racist conspiracy theories began circulating in local Facebook groups, homeowners made public posts questioning how they would affect property prices, one man was listed in the press as a “concerned father of two” as if three bulk carriers were going to creep ashore at night and try a little breaking and entering.

This all took place in an area supposedly renowned for its maritime history, where you can’t swing a heaving line without hitting someone who claims their father was personally fired from the shipyards by Thatcher, yet the level of hysteria and ignorance over a fairly common piece of maritime commerce was depressingly apparent.

The shipping industry and its support agencies have been trying for some time now to raise awareness of the marine industry through various campaigns, but as someone who has worked in the industry since before leaving high school it can only look as if these campaigns are failing.

Remastered Mariners is aiming to change that, for the simple reason that merchant shipping is hugely important, to our economy, to our living standards, for energy production and to defence.

A line, used for two decades when trying to draw attention to the Merchant Navy has been, “95% of everything you use has been brought in by a merchant sailor.” Maybe it is time we let that one go, and directly teach the 95% of the public who don’t seem to even know the shipping industry exists just how vital the ships and crews trundling day and night into our harbours and past our shores really are.

Merchant Navy Primer, Episode 1, “Not the REAL navy then?!” will be uploaded on Friday 31st January.