Chris O'Flaherty

Captain Chris O'Flaherty joined the Royal Navy in 1987. Deploying for much of his early career in the navy's smallest ships, he served as a diving and underwater bomb disposal officer in three different classes of minehunter and sweeper. After serving in frigates and aircraft carriers in both the North Atlantic and the Middle East, he commanded HMS Northumberland as she emerged from an extensive refit. Going on to command the Fleet Diving Squadron, in 2017 he was then elected as the Royal Navy's Hudson Fellow at St Antony's College, University of Oxford. Having completing his fellowship studying 'Naval Mines as an Instrument of Statecraft', he commanded the Royal Navy's Maritime Warfare Centre before serving as the UK's Defence Attaché in Libya. He is now the Senior Technical Adviser at The Nautical Institute, where he is the Institute's Permanent Representative at the International Maritime Organization.