William Austin began his sea-faring career in 1970 as an apprentice and Deck Officer serving world-wide on oil and chemical tankers in the British Merchant Navy; he also spent some 4 years on government research vessels during the mid 1970s’. Gaining a Class 1 Master Mariner ticket in 1981, his final voyage, before family commitments brought him ashore, was in 1989 as Master of a combination carrier in the South China seas.

There followed some years as a port captain and consultant working in a variety of tank-ship related employments. During this time he formed Duke Austin & Company as an association of similarly experienced ex-senior mariners promoting their skills on an independent basis. In 1993 Duke Austin & Co. was contracted to start marine risk inspections and vetting crude oil and gas vessels at Phillips Petroleum at Teesside Terminal in the UK; also inspection of vessels throughout the UK and NW Europe for Statoil of Norway. Some 18 year on, clients now include Statoil of Norway, ConocoPhillips, Preem, BP, PetroBras, Tesoro, and Petroplus covering Europe, Southern Africa, the Near East and beyond.

Duke Austin & Company was incorporated in 1999 and currently has 16 associated ship inspectors completing over 1000 ship vetting inspections per annum organised from their office based in Worcestershire, UK. Most inspections are within the Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF) SIRE system but work also includes Pre-Hire inspections and auditing of ship managers under the OCIMF Tanker Management and Self-Assessment programme (TMSA).

Considering himself privileged to have remained in such close day-to-day contact with such a fascinating industry, William Austin remains committed to the principles of ‘Independence, Integrity and Experience’ on which both Duke Austin and Austin Wiseman were founded. He is an OCIMF Auditing Inspector, a Lead Auditor and a member of The Nautical Institute, The Royal Institute of Navigation and the Institute of Petroleum (The Energy Institute). Outside of work and family, his other interests include cycling and the promotion of road safety through his chairmanship of the Worcestershire Advanced Motorcycle Group.