Roger Ashford is a senior design engineer at the Lilley & Gillie Technical Centre in Birmingham. Roger joined Walker Marine in 1964 as a junior draughtsman. Here, Roger looks back on nearly five decades of development in maritime navigational equipment.
Having been with the company for so many years, I’ve witnessed profound changes, not only in the way that products are designed but in their manufacture too. Prototyping and production techniques have changed the way that design engineers think and the availability of new design tools has contributed to a marked reduction in product design time.
I joined this industry in the days of mechanical towing logs and saw the introduction of electro-mechanical through-hull impeller logs, wind measuring equipment, the development of pitot tube (pressure) log systems and later electromagnetic (EM) log systems.
With the advent of microprocessors I was involved in the development of the first commercial yacht "transit" satellite navigation systems;, which preceded GPS, and intelligent autopilot systems. In recent years, we’ve introduced "solid state" wind and weather sensors, new types of display technology and serial data equipment, which allows different pieces of kit to talk to each other, and now we’re into the age of ECDIS. It’s all been a fascinating journey!
The introduction of wave piercing alloy hull technology meant that marine equipment had to cope with increased speeds of vessels and safety became ever more important. The Electro Magnetic Compatibility (EMC) Regulations in 1992 put further demands on designers and new techniques in shielding enclosures and windows followed. The changes to international standards that resulted from the inclusion of EMC created a greater awareness of the need for safety of life at sea, which in turn resulted in an ever-growing awareness of the responsibility of those involved, not just in design, but also in testing new maritime products.
Since the Charente Group, under its Lilley & Gillie banner, took over Walker Marine, we’ve been more proactive to the needs of the marketplace and to overall standards of quality. This has culminated in the expansion of the design and development department and its move to our new Technical Centre. Here, David Edwards has brought together a talented team of dedicated professionals with the ambition to move the company forward with new product ranges that have been fully tested in house and that can be placed into the marketplace with more confidence than ever before.