Graeme Mackie BSc, MSc, CEng, FRINA, MEI

Graeme Mackie has worked for over 30 years as a project engineer and project manager in the naval defence, commercial shipping, oil & gas and marine renewables industries. Following graduation from the University of Glasgow with a BSc in Naval Architecture he carried out a two year programme of research into the intact and damage stability of floating offshore platforms as part of the Department of Energy’s Offshore Fluid Loading Advisory Group leading to the award of an MSc in Offshore Engineering from the University of Glasgow.

In 1976 he joined engineering consultancy Y-ARD Ltd where he worked for 15 years in their Glasgow and Cape Town offices as a project naval architect and project manager on defence, commercial and offshore projects. From 1988 as Principal Technologist he was responsible for naval architecture output from Y-ARD’s Glasgow and Chippenham offices including R&D projects such as “Warship Future Propulsor Study” for the MoD(UK), “Deep Water Riser Study” for Mobil and FPSO concept design and hydrodynamic evaluation for Foster Wheeler. He also managed a one year project into the design, construction and economics of the Severn Tidal Power Barrage for the Energy Technology Support Unit of the Atomic Energy Authority.

From 1991 he worked for Swan Hunter Shipbuilders as Project Design Manager / Company Naval Architect until the company’s closure as a naval yard in 1995 when he became joint founder and Technical Director of Armstrong Technology. As Technical Director he managed the naval architecture and marine systems integration design of a number of new-build and conversion FPSOs and floating LNG production units for the North Sea, Gulf of Mexico and West Africa. During his 7 years at Armstrong Technology he developed a close working relationship with the University of Newcastle on the development of tools for the optimisation of FPSOs and their mooring systems and the design and economic analysis of solution for exploiting offshore stranded gas fields.

In 2002 he left Armstrong Technology to offer consultancy services to the marine renewables industry through his company Overberg Limited. Projects have included the management of air turbine development and fixed and floating wave energy devices for Wavegen, Inverness, support to Aquamarine Power Ltd, Edinburgh on the design of their oscillating wave surge conversion device and the development of economic models to evaluate the potential of renewable energy systems. Graeme is a Fellow of the Royal Institution of Naval Architects and a Member of the Energy Institute.

He has lectured the wave and tidal energy module of the REFLEX course in Renewable Energy at the University of Newcastle since 2006 when the module was introduced to the syllabus of a three year post-graduate qualification.

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