Lloyd's Register Foundation at Hay Festival 2022

Lloyd's Register Foundation has partnered with The Hay Festival to curate and deliver a series of "Ocean Futures" talks between May 26th and June 5th 2022, helping raise awareness of the need to ensure a safe and sustainable future for our oceans.

Returning for its first in-person spring event since 2019, Hay Festival is the world’s leading festival of ideas, bringing Nobel Prize winners and novelists, scientists and politicians, historians, environmentalists and musicians to join a global conversation, sharing the latest thinking in the arts and sciences with curious audiences.

A wide programme of education and outreach work runs alongside all of the Festival’s events, supporting coming generations of writers and culturally hungry audiences. Key speakers at this year's event include Hilary Clinton, Stephen Fry and Nicola Sturgeon.

Searchlight - Premiere

Ruth Boumphrey, Dan McDougall and Jamie Chestnutt

Saturday 28 May 2022, 4pm, Venue: Cube

• Over 320,000 people worldwide drown every year. As long as people and vessels are on the water, search and rescue (SAR) operations are needed. Yet operating conditions are increasingly challenging and SAR teams face unprecedented new risks.

  Searchlight is the third short film commissioned by Lloyd’s Register Foundation to explore the relationship between the ocean and people all around the world – people who rely on the ocean for food or their livelihood, live in coastal communities, or those who work at sea. Given the increasing demands we are placing on ocean space and the risk of working in ever more extreme environments, how can we better protect people from harm?

  The première is followed by a discussion between Ruth Boumphrey, Director of Research and Strategic Programmes for Lloyd’s Register Foundation, Dan McDougall, film director, writer and British Foreign Correspondent of the Year – who has won four Amnesty International Awards for Human Rights Reporting – and Jamie Chestnutt, Director of Engineering & Supply at the RNLI.

The Plimsoll Sensation

Nicolette Jones

Tuesday 31 May 2022, 4pm, Venue: Festival Friends Stage

• The Plimsoll Sensation: The Great Campaign to Save Lives at Sea tells the true tale of the agitation led by Samuel Plimsoll MP, ‘The Sailor’s Friend’, and by his wife Eliza, who worked together to defend sailors against nefarious practices including overloading and the use of unseaworthy ‘coffin-ships’.
• The backlash of libel cases and vilification almost ruined Plimsoll, but his drive and passion made him feverishly popular with the public; he was the subject of plays, novels, street ballads and music hall songs. With the demonstrative support of the nation, he faced down his enemies, came close to ousting Disraeli’s government and achieved lasting safety measures for merchant sailors, including the load line that bears his name.
• In this illustrated talk, Nicolette Jones throws light on a cross-section of Victorian society and tells the story of an epic legal, social and political battle for justice, which is still an inspiring example of how the altruism and courage of determined individuals can make the world a better place.

The Seaweed Revolution

Vincent Doumeizel, Andy Fryers

Tuesday 31 May 2022, 5.30pm, Venue: Llwyfan Cymru – Wales Stage

• Seaweed has the potential to address some of the world’s most pressing challenges. About 50 per cent of the photosynthesis on Earth occurs in seaweeds and microscopic algae floating in the oceans contributing to the uptake of carbon dioxide and the release of oxygen. The seaweeds provide shelter for marine life and are an important part of the food chain. How can an upscaled, responsible and restorative seaweed industry play a globally significant role in food security, climate change mitigation, and support to the marine ecosystem, as well as contributing to job creation and economic growth?
• Vincent Doumeizel is Senior Adviser at United Nations Global Compact on Oceans and director for the Food Programme for the Lloyd’s Register Foundation. He talks to Hay Festival’s Sustainability Director.

Rewilding the Sea - How to Save our Oceans

Sunday 5 June 2022, 11:30am, Venue: Festival Friends Stage

• In his follow-up to The End of the Line: How Overfishing is Changing the World, the environmental campaigner chronicles how determined individuals are proving that the crisis in our oceans can be reversed. We need to step aside and let nature repair the damage: whether it is the overfishing of bluefin tuna in the Atlantic or the destruction of coral gardens by dredgers in Lyme Bay. Trawling and dredging create more CO2 than the aviation industry and damage vast areas of the continental shelves, stopping them soaking up carbon. We need to fish in different ways, where we fish at all. Charles Clover is the Executive Director and co-founder of the Blue Marine Foundation.

Hay Shantymen

Wednesday 1 June 2022, 2pm, Venue: Marquee

• Hay Shantymen sing rollicking shanties here on the East Coast of Wales. Enjoyment is guaranteed or else you’ll walk the plank!