The winners of the 2025 Brian Black Memorial Award (BBMA), which recognises outstanding writing and photography that highlight the changing marine environment, have been announced.
The award, now in its fifth year and supported by antifouling specialist Coppercoat, aims to showcase how journalism can shed light on environmental issues through personal stories. This year, two new photography competitions were introduced for adults and juniors, the latter held in collaboration with The Week Junior. The theme of the event was ‘Our Changing Seas’.
The main writing prize of £2,000, along with publication in Yachting Monthly and a brass and wood engraved compass, was awarded to Katherine Knight. Her entry recounted her experience in Dunvullaig Bay, Loch Craignish, during the covid pandemic, where she became involved in restoring seagrass meadows. Over several years, Knight’s efforts helped revive the habitat, providing a nursery for fish and wildlife while capturing carbon.
Knight says, “I am honoured and delighted to receive the Brian Black Memorial Award. Thank you for the opportunity to tell my story about sailing and seagrass, which are two of the things that I’m most passionate about. I hope that this inspires people to get out, have adventures on their sailing boat, and also think about how they can bring positive action for conservation into what they’re doing.’
The adult photography award, with a Canon R50 mirrorless camera kit as the prize, was presented to Kirstin Jones. Her photograph depicted her 43-foot steel yacht entangled in discarded fishing nets while sailing off Barbuda in the Caribbean. Despite rough conditions, she navigated to safety before removing the debris, capturing an image the judges described as visually striking and narratively powerful.
Jones says: “Thank you so much for giving me this award. It is a privilege to be offered such a fantastic opportunity to raise awareness of a very real threat to our oceans. Over 500,000 tonnes of nets, lines, traps, and so on, enter our seas each year. There, this ‘ghost gear’ entangles wildlife, damages the seabed, breaks down into microplastics and, as we experienced first-hand, presents a hazard to navigation.’
Judges for this year’s competition included Sarah Brown, Penny Black, Dr Bob Brown, and sailor Mike Golding OBE, alongside editorial teams from Yachting Monthly and The Week Junior.
The junior photography prize, a Canon 2000D SLR, went to ten-year-old Arabella Alexander for her photograph of a driftwood log eroding on the beach at Charmouth. The judges praised its composition and ability to find beauty in natural processes.
Alexander says: “I didn’t expect to win this prize, and I can’t believe I have. I look forward to having a proper camera to take pictures with and to share my view of the beautiful natural world. Thank you so much.”
Runners-up were Victoria Waddington and Joshua Rowell, both aged nine, for their images of a jellyfish and a loggerhead turtle.
Golding says: “The world’s oceans are all connected, and the way we treat them has a global impact. Education, one person at a time, showing them what impact their actions can have on the environment below the water’s surface, can have a huge impact, and transform whole ecosystems for the better. For that reason, journalism and storytelling is crucial in making visible and accessible something that is often remote and inacessible.”
The Brian Black Memorial Award was founded in 2020 in memory of Brian and Lesley Black by their family and Yachting Monthly. Lesley Black was the first female commodore of a Northern Irish yacht club and an accomplished sailor. Brian Black was a journalist, filmmaker and broadcaster from Northern Ireland known for documenting climate change in high-latitude regions.
Ewan Clark, director of sponsor Coppercoat, says: “The team at Coppercoat is delighted to support the Brian Black Memorial Award. The concept of using sailing boats to explore the natural world, and to do so with minimal impact on the environment, is absolutely aligned with our values. At Coppercoat, we remain convinced that our product is still leading the market when it comes to low-impact antifoul, and independent tests have shown that Coppercoat’s impact.”
The award also provided a £1,000 donation to the UK charity Sea-Changers, which funds marine conservation and research projects across the country.
The post Brian Black Memorial Award for writing and photography – winners announced appeared first on Marine Industry News.
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