Wilco Veerman came along for his second stint as Guest Speaker at our Club (the previous time being in April 2023), and it was a pleasure to welcome him back! Wilco’s topic was Naval Architecture, and he delivered his talk with clarity and humour. The first slide that he displayed was of a couple of ships sinking, and that’s what Naval Architecture seeks to avoid! Wilco traced the history of ships from sailing vessels in all their glory through the steam era and on to today’s complex and wide-ranging array of various vessels. These days ships can be planned on a computer, and this is much easier than having to experiment with designs on a piece of paper. The computer programmes can simulate all sorts of scenarios and conditions, thus allowing huge vessels to be designed very efficiently. This includes off-shore oil installations which are incredible in size, so much so that it is a huge challenge to decommission them when they have served their purpose. The danger of pollution from this exercise is vast, but a gigantic catamaran has been developed to facilitate the decommissioning process – 382 metres long and 124 metres wide! Wilco gave an example of another challenge resulting from an obsolete submarine languishing in Port Phillip Bay, and described how a rescue vessel was submerged alongside the sub which was then gently pulled into the rescue vessel. Wilco also showed pictures of an enormous fish farm in Norway which is as big as a crude oil tanker! Thanks, Wilco, for taking us into the unknown!