The Beacon Man by David Marshall

I believed that I was determined to save as many lives as possible driven from my tragedy of being a man overboard. I embarked on a lifetime quest from battling giant land crabs on lonely islands to being adopted by a japanese family… Venturing round the globe from port to port my life grew with fascinating and thrilling adventures consisting of a dreaded whisker of near death in a boeing 727 aircraft disaster.

Nominated inventor of the year I spent years of research to develop a device to assist in an overboard situation meeting US millionaires, Congressmen and Senators including Ted Kennedy to being pursued by the Russians to fit their fleets. ‘An absolutely fascinating story.’