Winter Lecture by Mike Cowan
Book by Monday 18th March
It is with great pleasure that we announce the guest speaker for our Cruising winter lecture on Wednesday, March 20th. We are honoured to welcome Member Mike Cowan who will be delivering his talk titled 'Oil Spill Response; Some of the Issues'.
Mike's talk will cover the early years of oil spills from the Torrey Canyon in 1967 through to the time tanker design was changed radically to reduce the impact of marine accidents. It will also cover the issues which have to be addressed in the process of oil spill response together with some of the many problems facing the responders. Everything from on water recovery, the issues around the use of dispersants and dealing with the consequence of shoreline impact.
After establishing that Pure Physics was not for Mike, he left University and ran away to sea, joining Shell Tankers in 1969.
Having worked through the ranks, he qualified as a Master Mariner (Foreign Going) in 1983. Part way through that process I switched companies to Esso, the UK arm of Exxon, later becoming ExxonMobil in the year 2000.
Company policy shifted and there became fewer opportunities at sea and so came ashore into management and took up the role of Oil Spill Response Manager, initially for Europe, Africa and the Middle East but soon found himself travelling world-wide conducting training, running exercises and sometimes responding to incidents. The role had expanded to cover all forms of business interruptions and covered business continuity issues in all the countries we had operations. This included earthquake response (Japan, and the Boxing Day Tsunami were examples) as well as riots and civil disturbance.
A fascinating end to a career spanning 41 years in the oil industry!
The lecture will start at 18:30 prompt, so we recommend you arrive in good time to get a drink from the bar to take to your seat in the Island Room. If you are booked for supper, it will be served in the River Room after the lecture, please sit where you wish.
Members should book for supper no later than Monday 18th March, along with any dietary requirements.
MENU - 1 Course £17.95, 2 courses £22.95
Luxury Shepherd Pie: Slow braised Lamb Shoulder, Beef and Dorset cheddar, topped with Mash Potatoes, buttered peas
Vegetable Lasagne: Layered fresh pasta, rich bechamel sauce,
sauteed vegetable and a blend of ricotta and mozzarella cheese.
Moules Provencale
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Pear williams and blueberry strudel, vanilla crème anglaise
Frozen berries, sorbet, white chocolate sauce
Chocolate Brownie with vanilla icecream
If you would like to attend the lecture without the supper, please also reserve your seat so that we can monitor numbers.
