The Team

Captain Douglas Lindsay

Douglas Lindsay was born into a shipping family and went to sea age fifteen, shovelling coal. From there he went deepsea as a Cadet with Clan Line, worked his way up through the ranks of deck officer on passenger liners, reefers, tankers, coasters and bulk carriers before being promoted master on large ro-ro freighters aged 28, very young for such a position.

From there some years passed ashore working as ship manager, ship broker, port agent and stevedore and even briefly as a shipowner. In 1985 he became a self-employed consultant and very largely has remained so ever since. This has spanned a variety of activities from macro-economic studies and business development through financial analysis to investigative field work, dispute resolution and ship repossession. In recent years he has become an expert on the Port Marine Safety Code and continues to advise ports on marine safety, risk assessment and operations.

Interleaved with this he has continued his direct association with the sea by serving on square-rigged sailing ships, mostly as master but quite happy to take whatever comes along. This also remains an active involvement. He has been part of the Action By Sea project since it was first talked about some years ago and longs to see it come to fruition as his parting gift to the sea which has given him his life.

Pete Wilkinson

Pete Wilkinson co-founded Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace UK 1971 and 1977 respectively, was Campaigns Director of Greenpeace UK 1981 - 1991, and appointed to the first Greenpeace International board in 1981.

He ran what one journalist called some of the most imaginative environmental campaigns of the 80s including averting the pointless culling of grey seals in the Orkneys, forcing the collapse of the market for the fur of harp seal pups killed in the tens of thousands in Canada, closing all UK dolphinaria, ending commercial whaling, stopping radioactive waste disposal in the Atlantic and dramatically reducing the level of radioactive waste discharges from Sellafield into the Irish Sea. As expedition leader on six Greenpeace voyages between 1985 and 1991, he was instrumental in preventing Antarctic minerals exploitation for 50 years and having the Antarctic declared a World Park.

In 1992 Pete established his own environmental policy consultancy, advising industry on nuclear waste management, the oil industry on redundant rig management in the wake of the Brent Spar fiasco and the DTI on the establishment of the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority.

In 2003, he was appointed to the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management. He is a member of the HSE's Nuclear Directorate transition advisory panel, and the government's Geological Disposal Implementation Board. He lives in Peasenhall with his wife, Gaye, and two children, Emily and Amy.

Richard Mayon-White

Richard runs the Expertise Consultancy Group; a small group of companies which specialise in supporting teams operating in remote environments. The companies adhere to a strong set of ethics and he believes passionately in the sustainable interaction between the individual, community and environment.

He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and the Zoological Society of London.

Richard is also a commercially endorsed RYA Yachtmaster and has extensive experience of the Atlantic Ocean. In early 2006, he rowed across the Atlantic, passing through the southern edge of the North Atlantic Garbage Patch. This gave him firsthand experience of the amount of waste in the Ocean.