The creator of the Seafarers Happiness Index has received a prestigious UK maritime award for his work championing mental health.
Steven Jones, 52, founded the index in 2015 and it has become an annual survey of seafarer sentiment.
Jones was among nine people awarded the Merchant Navy Medal and was praised for his campaigning work.
He played a prominent role in highlighting the plight of six British maritime security guards wrongly imprisoned in an Indian jail.
The guards — who became known as the Chennai Six — were jailed for five years for possessing illegal arms being used to guard ships against Somali pirates.
The entire 35-strong crew of the AdvanFort armoury support vessel, Seaman Guard Ohio, was detained in 2013 after a cyclone blew the vessel off course and they were running low on fuel and provisions.
The six who were convicted and jailed were finally released in 2017.
“I’m glad I can shine a light on the important work that seafarers do and I’ll continue to champion them in the years to come,” Jones said.
Other winners of the medal included the four-strong crew of a superyacht who helped rescue 100 people from the sea after an overcrowded boat carrying migrants sank while trying to reach Italy in 2023.
The Happiness Index survey covers areas including contact with family while on ships, access to shore leave and wages.
The last survey published in July highlighted a digital divide between seafarers with access to online communications and those without.
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