London sprang to life in September for London International Shipping Week.
Something like 160 events took place – seminars, conferences, receptions, parties, networking events, the enormous gala dinner …and of course Spinnaker's 20th birthday party and our fourth OSCAR Dragon Boat Race.
Hats off yet again to the organisers at Shipping Innovation – thousands of people descended upon London including many diplomatic types all expecting immediate and special treatment. Coordinating them, the official events, keeping sponsors like us happy and maintaining a sense of humour is no mean feat. Well done.
The OSCAR dragon boat race attracted 24 teams, 350 people and raised £151,000 for research at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children and the UCL Institute for Child Health. That's now £1.65m raised for OSCAR by the shipping industry. A massive thank you to everyone who took part, supported, sponsored and donated.
It felt like a good week for Spinnaker to turn 20. London was abuzz and there was increased market optimism in the air.
If the futurists are to be believed we might none of us be here in another 20 years as the robots and autonomous everything takes over. Such was the theme of many of the talks during LISW. Me? I'm not so sure. Things are changing rapidly at the moment of course. We all used to be farmers but found something else to do when farming mechanised. Who know what we'll be doing into 20 years’ time…?
