Lauren Beck is the former editor of Dockwalk and was with the publication from 2006 to 2023. At 13, she left South Africa aboard a 34-foot sailing boat with her family and ended up in St. Maarten for six years. Before college, she worked as crew for a year, and then cut her journalistic teeth at Better Homes and Gardens and Ladies’ Home Journal online. She loves traveling, reading, tennis, and rooting for the Boston Red Sox.
After a successful first year, Seahub Yacht Management Software has now opened the nomination period for its Seahub Engineering Grant for 2023. The nomination period runs until March 1, and the winner will be announced on March 5, 2023.
The $3,000 grant is open to yachting engineers for training, plus the winner gets access to Seahub’s database of 3,000-plus OEM manuals and technical datasheets, and their tools used to implement vessel maintenance plans for all size vessels. Seahub also mentors the winner, for as long as the engineer would like.
“The grant is designed to provide support to an engineer who has an ambition to advance their career in the yachting industry,” says Sam Wheaton, commercial director and cofounder at Seahub. “Engineers with a desire to upskill and broaden their knowledge base are the kind of applicants we are drawn to. Likewise, engineers who show traits of being just good solid people all stand out as the kinds of engineers we would like to support.”
Wheaton shared that they were overwhelmed with the number of nominations they received from captains and crew last year — more than 200 as they shared stories of how their engineer deserved recognition for going above and beyond. Engineer Jackson Pinney of 120-foot Nordhavn M/Y My Aurora was the 2021 recipient.
Mentorship has played a vital role in Wheaton’s career, which is why he likes to give back. “The concept of the grant came from discussions around our early (formidable!) years working as engineers and the impacts that good mentors had on us and how that shaped our careers,” Wheaton says. “Mentorship, both technically from an engineering standpoint, but perhaps more importantly, on a personal level on how to treat people (crew, contractors, and guests) and how to conduct yourself on board,” he says. While he notes that there are many textbooks that teach how to be a good engineer, “how to be a good crewmember, that’s a little trickier.”
The mentorship aspect of the award allows the engineer on board access to what Wheaton calls a “sounding board separate to your immediate crew.” This can offer the engineer a second or third opinion on a repair or a situation on board. “We have made most of the mistakes you can make or have seen them made, so hopefully that can help prevent someone else making them for the first time,” Wheaton says.
You can nominate your engineer by emailing Seahub: info@seahub.com.au.