Sea Breezes, worldwide shipping magazine

Much of the success of the Roman Empire was due to the fact that the Romans were very good at standardisation. The Roman inheritance is still very much with us today, our word mile is from the Latin ‘mille’ (a soldier’s thousand paces); inch comes from ‘uncia’; lb as the symbol for pound weight and £ in money from ‘libra’ and ton, with its variations of spelling, from ‘tunna’...

Shetland is the most northerly group of islands in the United Kingdom. Of the one hundred islands there are sixteen which are inhabited although the majority of the 21,000 population lives on the largest island, Mainland. From north to south Shetland is roughly 150 km and from east to west about 75 km with an amazing 1,450 km of spectacular coastline.

Much media attention has been given in recent months to the subject of global warming. The impact of this with regard to shipping routes has meant that the famous North West Passage between the Atlantic and Pacific areas is now ice free.

The call came when I was based at the Boom Defence Depot in Greenock, Scotland. The order was a bit obscure but it was clear enough in other respects. I had to report to Chatham Navy Base to join a specialised salvage vessel currently undergoing an emergency overhaul – or refit – whatever was in progress. There was only a short time to complete the work and I was to waste...