Captain Richard Woodman is an Elder Brother of Trinity House. He first went to sea in cargo liners at the age of 16. He has written 30 movels, and award-winning five-volume History of the British Merchant Navy, and is co-author of The Lighthouses of Trinity House. In 2001 he won the Desmond Wettern Maritime Media Award for his promotion of the Merchant Navy, particularly as a correspondent of the shipping newspaper Lloyd's List, for which he wrote a regular monthly column for 13 years.