MSDS Marine are pleased to announce the 2021 winners of the MSDS Marine Grant Awards. The Awards were presented online at the 2021 Nautical Archaeology Society conference on Saturday 20th November.
Protected Wreck Support Award 2021
The Protected Wreck Support Award is designed to help support Licensees and their teams. Licensees and their teams have played a huge role in the careers of all MSDS Marine staff. They have inspired us, taught us and helped us develop our skills, and to recognise this we use the awards as a mechanism to give something back.
Due to the exceptional quality of the applications, and for the first time ever, we have awarded two Protected Wreck Support Awards this year to recipients Daniel Pascoe and Ian Cundy. Both applicants were thoroughly deserving of the award.
Daniel Pascoe, Mary Rose
Dan is a familiar face within England’s protected wreck community and has worked on many sites including the Invincible, Northumberland and Hazardous. For many years he has also been involved with the Mary Rose. This grant will go towards the hire of a dive charter boat to enable a team to inspect the current condition of the remaining wreck material on the seabed. This is particularly urgent as in August 2021 a high-resolution multi-beam survey of the site identified potential timbers emerging from an area believed to be the potential location of the missing bow castle. It is thought that seabed erosion has occurred in this area possibly due to scouring around the sinker and chain of the site buoy. This inspection of the site will allow the team to assess the archaeology that is potentially exposed and to determine what measures will be needed to record and protect it. If timber structures and or artefacts are found relating to the Mary Rose it will provide further evidence that there are significant remains still on the seabed.
Ian Cundy, Bronze Bell
MSDS Marine have been working on the Bronze Bell site this year on behalf of the CHERISH Project. We were therefore delighted to receive Ian’s application. Ian has been involved with the Bronze Bell wreck since 1998 and has acted more recently as the wreck’s nominated archaeologist. The grant will be used to develop and print an information leaflet about the wreck for visitors to the Ty Gwyn Museum in Barmouth which houses material from the wreck.
Student Support Award 2021
The Student Support Award is intended to help support maritime archaeology students in the UK. The growing MSDS Marine team includes a number of early years’ professionals who have all recently completed university courses. Their recent experience highlights the significant costs faced by students to complete their education. MSDS Marine strongly believe fieldwork, and other training experiences, help create professionals with a more rounded skill set and are keen to help allow students to maximise the experiences that they get. To this end MSDS Marine offer many volunteer opportunities for students but are now also keen to help support them financially to gain experiences which might otherwise be unaffordable.
Lydia Wooley, Southampton University
The 2021 winner, Lydia Wooley, is a masters student at Southampton University. Lydia’s enthusiasm for maritime archaeology and hardworking attitude impressed us all at MSDS Marine. Lydia plans to use the grant to gain new diving qualifications and further diving experience that she hopes to be able to use in her future career. Lydia is interested in how maritime archaeology can provide a response to the climate emergency and we wish her every success in her future career.
Find out more about the awards and previous winners here: www.MSDSMarine.co.uk/awards
