Richard has more than 30 years experience in the UK as a company director both in the private and voluntary sector and was a Chartered member of the Institute of Directors.

Following a career as a shipbroker in the City of London, Richard has been involved in the voluntary sector for the last 22 years, most notably as chairman of a successful small charity supporting people living with an acquired brain injury; as chairman of the tenants association for the Barbican Estate in the City of London; and for 8 years as a director and treasurer of a landscape conservation charity in the west of Ireland.

Having moved to Newhaven in 2017, Richard has worked with The Explorer as a Board advisor focusing on Governance and Business Planning, becoming a trustee in early 2022 and then took over as Acting Chair.

Meredith grew up in a sailing town called Lymington in Hampshire, where everyone sailed, including her family. Her dad was a very keen sailor and represented the USA at international races; he was also a professional marine artist, so as a child Meredith spent a lot of her time either at harbours or art galleries.

A former curator of Historic Photographs and Ship Plans at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich, and Curator of Maritime History at Aberdeen Maritime Museum, Meredith was also responsible for curating the new Windermere Jetty Museum of Boats, Steam and Stories in the English Lake District. As well as working in museums Meredith previously worked as project administrator on the first British offshore wind farm at North Hoyle, Wales.

Dr Meredith Greiling is Principal Curator of Technology at National Museums Scotland with responsibility for all land, sea and air transportation in the collections.

Andy is a retired teacher from Leith, having served as previous Chair of the Explorer group, he now advises the group and provides research for grant applications. “Everyone knows Leith as the home of the Royal Yacht Britannia, but other than that, there isn’t very much in the way of Leith’s maritime history being explored, so hopefully we can help plug that gap. The Explorer has been in Leith for more than 20 years and in that time, there has been basic work, warding off the effects of rust, a few tidy ups, but nothing particularly extensive. The plan now is to get the story of The Explorer out there and hopefully start restoring it with as many original features as possible

Adrian is the technical advisor to the board as well as one of our maintenance crew. He has volunteered in the operation and restoration of several historic ships in both Germany and the USA since 2018.

His duties involve planning and budgeting for maintenance activities and supporting the board in technical matters while actively carrying out repair works on our ship.

Being originally from Germany, Adrian has served in the German Navy, where he found his passion for historic ships. He spent five years working in the renewable energy sector before completing a master’s degree in Wind Energy Technology at Bremerhaven University. Currently he lives in Edinburgh and works in the Scottish offshore wind industry.

Jim was the Senior Inspector of the Quality Control department of George Ballantine Whisky distilleries and then went on to work 18 years in the offshore oil and gas industry.

He worked offshore as part of the catering crew on ships and rigs, with that background has taken on the housekeeping roll onboard, I also give any visitors a guided tour of the Explorer.

Scott is one of our volunteers in the technical operations team. He supports the ongoing maintenance work on Explorer and has a focus on radio equipment and historic electrical equipment.

He originally worked as a car mechanic for ten years, before moving offshore as an engineer crewing wind farm transfer vessels.

Additionally he volunteers with Lothian 4x4 Response as an urgent responder and holds an amature radio license.

Nick is a volunteer performing ongoing maintenance work on Explorer. He just completed a BEng Mechanical Engineering at the University of Edinburgh and is working aboard the Explorer to gain some practical experience.

For him it is a good opportunity to actually be around engineering machinery and get his hands on the tasks.

Nick has experience volunteering on other historic projects.

He has been a winch house operator with the Paddle Steamer - Maid of the Loch in Balloch since 2020