Among the ten men and women who have been who have been awarded the Merchant Navy Medal for 2007 is Captain Barbara Campbell (pictured) for services to sea training, especially for those with physical disabilities. Captain Campbell, aged 50, is Master of the Jubilee Sailing Trust square-rigger Tenacious, which she has skippered on cruises in home waters and to the Canaries and Caribbean, which enable mixed crews of able-bodied and handicapped volunteers to gain experience of the challenges of voyages under sail.

Tenacious, a recent addition to Britain's tall ship fleet, is a handsome 213ft three-masted barque, which Captain Campbell commanded during the 2005 Tall Ships Race. In December last year she and the Tenacious rescued the crew of the French yacht Zouk, which had lost her rudder in a gale in mid-Atlantic, and was foundering.

Captain Campbell, who lives on the Firth of Clyde, went to sea in 1975 as a deck cadet in P&O cargo ships — one of the first three girl cadets in the company. She served as 3rd officer on the P&O cruise liner Oriana in the early 1980s, had seven years from 1987 as a second mate on P&O's Northern Isles Ferry Service, and took her Master's ticket in 1999. Involved with sail training for the past ten years, she skippered the Sail Training Association's three-masted topsail schooner Malcolm Miller on its last year in commission, and has since been sailing master of its new brigs Stavros Niarchos and Prince William.

Built at Southampton, by a mixed ability team of able bodied and physically disabled volunteers, her present command is, at 686 tons, the largest wooden sailing ship to be built in Britain for a century.

Sailing a barque like Tenacious is, as Captain Campbell says, “very labour-intensive”. But this makes it a wonderful opportunity for those with physical disabilities to play an active role in operating this marvelous vessel. Even those who are wheelchair bound play a full part in handling running rigging and hoisting yards at sea, even going aloft, with the help of able-bodied crew members.

The Merchant Navy Medal is a recent institution. Since British seafarers are employed by companies, not the State, they have (unlike the Royal Navy and other maritime agencies operating under the auspices of the Crown) never had a decoration of their own to reward meritorious service or acts of courage.

Instituted in 2005, as a charitable initiative with the support of the Chamber of Shipping, the Maritime and Coastguard Agency and trade unions, the Merchant Navy Medal now fills this gap. It can be awarded as an honorary decoration to those who are not registered British seafarers.

Other awards for 2007 are to: Captain G. Black (services to Irish Sea ferries); Chief Engineer S. J. Clews (services to oil tanker design and safety); Captain D. Devey (services to pilotage); J. Duffy (services to cruise liners); J. McKenna (services to the port of Liverpool). Honorary awards were made to: The Rev H. Drysdale (services to merchant seafarers); Commodore Sir Donald Gosling (services to seafaring and maritime charities); Mrs I. Saines (services to serving and retired merchant seafarers); D. E. D. Prentis (services to shipbroking and the Medway Seaman's Trust).