A day in the life of...
John Walker
John Walker MIIMS is a respected, well known and long serving marine surveyor, who has been practising on the beautiful island of Majorca for a number of years. He also oversees the Western Mediterranean branch of the IIMS Large Yacht & Small Craft Working Group, which comes together to meet annually at the Palma Superyacht Show in April each year. John talks to the Report Magazine about his work and life away from surveying.
Q. What is your surveying specialism and what was your route into marine surveying?
A. My first introduction to marine surveying was when I was a deck cadet with BP shipping. I was paired with a surveyor who was tasked with cargo tank structure inspections of the 270000 DWT VLCC I was on. It took us weeks and involved a lot of floating around in a rubber dinghy in the tanks. Hands up other people who have been – “in a boat….. in a boat”? Not many I bet. It was all very interesting of course, and mucky.
The next time I remember being curious about marine surveying was when a SUNSEEKER that I was responsible for was undergoing a pre-purchase survey. The methodology of testing, inspection
and reporting meaningfully on such a complex piece of machinery began to fascinate me. I could not imagine the process, the knowledge base required or how to format such a report. Later, I was able to view several pre- purchase reports and then realised (A) that marine surveying was a profession, and that (B) I may have had some of the qualities needed for that profession. I met some of the local surveyors and was not terribly impressed by their competence; back then it seemed it wasn’t necessary to be very good. I decided to go to an IIMS meeting shortly after that in the UK to confirm my idea that all marine surveyors were tweed jacket wearing chaps, perhaps little removed from reality, and got a big shock. These people were indeed professionals, hardly any with
tweed jackets and if I was going to do this as a job, I realised I had a lot to learn! I signed up for the diploma course and enjoyed soaking up as much knowledge as possible.
Ten years ago I bought the marine surveying company BIMS SL from the French owners, the Heon’s. Jacques and Francine stayed on for three years to keep me on the right track, trying to knock some French into me as with the company came a large portfolio of French clients.
Right now the company is in a position in which it carries out more damage evaluation work, usually for insurance companies. However, I feel our specialist field would be large yacht performance sea-trials. Core business as ever is pre-purchase surveys on sail and motor with reporting also in Spanish and French.
The Report • March 2018 • Issue 83 | 71
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