Victoria Drummond Award

Nautilus Chairman, Ulrich Jurgens, congratulates Admiralty pilot, Rachel Dunn, on her receipt of the Victoria Drummond award.

Photo: Nautilus


Rachel Dunn, wife of Southampton pilot, Neil Dunn, received the Nautilus  Victoria Drummond Award presented by Sir Alan Massey at the 1st Nautilus International Conference.

Rachel is the only female Admiralty Pilot. Having first gone to sea as a Cadet with Shell Tankers in 1984 she obtained her Masters Certificate in 1993. Shortly after that she left Shell and joined Wightlink as Chief Officer. In 1997 she was promoted to Master, a post that she held for eleven years before leaving to become a Trainee Admiralty Pilot in Portsmouth last year. Rachel has now qualified as a Pilot after twelve months in training and next April she will be a fully qualified as an Unrestricted Admiralty Pilot ready for the aircraft carriers.

The award is named after one of Queen Victoria’s goddaughters, Victoria Drummond, who abandoned a privileged lifestyle as a debutante to become the first female marine engineer in the Merchant Navy where she served for over forty years. During World War Two she was Second Engineer aboard the SS Bonita, when it came under attack from a German bomber. Having instructed the others to abandon the engine room she single handed not only  kept the engine running throughout the heavy bombardment but also managed to get the ship’s speed up to 12.5 kts, the fastest ever recorded in the ship’s 18 year life!  For this act of bravery she was honoured with an MBE and was awarded the Lloyd’s War Medal .

As Rachel says, ‘It was difficult enough for me when I first went to sea so I can’t begin to imagine what it must have been like for her. She was an amazing woman with an amazing history.”

 

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