Members and Guests Gather for SMI’s Annual Dinner

Two hundred guests gathered for SMI’s Annual Dinner at One Great George Street, London on November 30^th. They were welcomed by SMI’s President John Howie, Babcock International Group, and after-dinner enjoyed a presentation from The Ocean Cleanup.

Arjen Tjallema, Head of Technology, covered the scale of the plastic waste in our oceans and talked us through their engineering process of trialling and evaluation to increase the amount of waste that is removed in each voyage. They are also working to prevent plastics from entering the oceans with capture schemes in rivers. 

Tom Chant MBE, CEO of SMI said “I was delighted to see so many members at the dinner from all sizes of organisations – start-ups to the primes. Maritime engineering solutions are complex and require long term relationships and I’m very pleased we can provide a key moment in the calendar to bring organisations together. Huge thanks also to The Ocean Cleanup for being our guest speaker, it’s a fascinating project which I’m sure many of the membership will want to get involved in.”