The 'Marine Trade Young Person' award

By Paul Knox-Johnston Sales & Marketing Manager

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The team at our sister company, A-Plan Commercial Marine, recently sponsored the “Marine Trade Young Person” award” which was presented to the very worthy Sophie Tapp of Maritime Yacht Services at the British Marine, Marine Trade Association Awards Dinner in Southampton. Sophie heads up the Maritime Management side of the business, specialising in the superyacht market and their international tender projects.

Such a prestigious award, being handed out for the first time ever in 2023, deserved an outstanding trophy and the challenge of creating this was given to Jo Munford of Seaview Studio. Jo is a renowned artist specialising in unique stained-glass creations, with a strong connection to the marine industry. Jo, through her local Hampshire based business, creates stunning interior and exterior sculptures, windows, panels and wall art. Her pieces are a fusion of glass, metal and foraged wood.

BEHIND THE SCENES

The A-Plan team wanted the Trophy to be something out of the ordinary and truly unique. They really liked the way that Jo uses natural and recycled elements in her work to represent the marine environment and this was very much part of the brief. The final trophy design uses reclaimed wood mixed with glass to form a beautiful sculpture. The central post is part of an old sea groin from the Lymington coast that has been naturally sculpted by sea gribble. Sea glass found from the Netley shore is mixed with new coloured glass into two spirals that wrap around the groin representing the ocean and the encompassing nature of insurance.

We thought we’d take a look behind the scenes and see how the trophy came together. Telling us a bit about the process, Jo said,

“The trophy has been made using the copper foil ‘Tiffany’ technique, think vintage glass lampshades.

The copper-foil technique is a method of constructing 3-dimensional stain glass works, such as lampshades and to fit tiny pieces of glass together. For the technique, artists wrap the edges of the glass pieces with a thin copper foil about 0.002 inches in thickness before they are laid out and soldered together. Louis Comfort Tiffany, an American artist and designer who worked in the decorative arts and is best known for his work in stained glass, invented the copper-foil technique in 1880.”

For the “Marine Trade Young Person Award”, 32 pieces of glass were hand cut and every edge ground back to allow the copper foil to adhere. Following this, each piece of glass was wrapped with copper foil tape before it was fluxed and soldered together. Once the structure had been created, the work continued with a lot of cleaning and polishing involved! A patina was applied to the cleaned and polished solder to make it black and look more in keeping with traditional lead work.

To make the glass spirals, Jo needed to create a 3D template to wrap around the chunk of wooden groin. She jokes about using a very technical CAD (cardboard aided design), so once she was happy with the shape, could then lay it flat and use it as a template to cut the glass pieces to size. The cardboard template was then reattached to mimic the required angles and provide a guide for use when soldering the glass pieces together.

The final piece of the puzzle was adding the British Marine Logo by etching it onto the glass using a chemical etching cream and attaching the brass plaque with the award name. Many hours of craftsmanship went in to creating a one-of-a-kind award which will become synonymous with young talent in the marine industry over time.

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Haven Knox-Johnston Commercial is a trading name of A-Plan Holdings which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority No. 310164. Registered in England and Wales under company registration number 750484. Registered Office: 2 Des Roches Square, Witney, OX28 4LE. Calls may be monitored and recorded for quality assurance purposes