A photo English took of the cruiseship Oriana on the Geiranger fjord as he returned from a shore expedition won 25.7% of the votes.
English narrowly beat Parthasarathi Das Gupta, a chief engineer with Valles Steamship who after a late surge of support ended up with 23.8% of the votes cast for his photo of a tanker preparing to pass under the Sinai Bridge over the Suez Canal.
English who is ship data manager of Clarkson Research Services in London takes several hundred ship photos a year but confesses to snapping the wildlife in his garden when there is nothing maritime on the horizon.
The prize of a 16.2 megapixel Nikon D5100 digital SLR with an 18-105mm zoom lens and the TradeWinds’ Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy will soon be on the way to English.
Strong support for rival entries over the final days of the contest pushed a dramatic photo by tug master, Kevin Judkins, of night work on wreck removal of the containership, Rena, into third position with 18.2% of the votes.
The Rena photo was an early favourite of readers claiming more than 30% of the votes at one stage but slipped back as voting hotted up.

In fourth position a photo of the wake of a Chinese flag vessel taken by Capt Yunlong (Joe) Zhou of Bomin Bunker Oil got 17.8% of the votes.
Next with 7.8% of the votes was a photo of the Hurtigruten vessel, Trollford, making a night time departure from Alesund, taken by Alireza Shakernia of Rolls Royce Marine.
A photo of welding work underway at the HHIC-Phil shipyard at Subic Bay, taken by Stuart Scott of Rio Tinto, and one of a ship loading phosphate at Aqaba taken by Stephen Assheuer, of Admiris GmbH each got about 1.5% of the votes.
Also level pegging on just over 1% of the votes were photoa of the containership WEC Brueghel, battling heavy seas in the Bay of Biscay, taken by Maran Gas' Spyros Gertsos, and of a sunset in Manila Bay, by Capt Hans Schaefer of Tai Chong Cheang Steamship.
The remaining three shortlisted photos each got less than 1% of the votes.
Thanks to all who participated in the contest by entering photographs or voting for a favourite image.
Many stunning photos were entered for the competition, with the winner chosen by TradeWinds' readers from a shortlist of a dozen entries.
Click here to view a gallery of the shortlisted entries.
The deadline for voting was noon GMT, on Wednesday, 12 December so the contest is now over.
To view a selection of this year’s entries click here for the first half and here for the second half of a gallery of images.
Last year’s winner was Peter Russotti of d’Amico Tankers’ chartering department, with an atmospheric shot of a shaft of light piercing the gloom in a tank of the 36,000–dwt products carrier Cielo di Salerno (built 2002).
In 2010 the winner was Hamburg shipping fund manager, Holger Laufer, with a dramatic photograph of workers at the Jiangsu Hantong Ship Heavy Industry yard, knocking away the chocks prior to the slipway launch of a containership.
In 2009 the winner was Daewoo Mangalia manager, Sebastian Depner, who scooped the prize with the aid of seagulls on a mooring rope of a soon to be delivered containership.
The winner in 2008 was Capt Charles Brown of OSG Shipmanagement, with a shot of his 47,200-dwt products carrier Overseas Maremar (built 1998) about to sail under a rainbow.
The winner in 2007 was Russian shipping banker Egor Ryabchenko, with a photo of the ice encrusted 5,500-dwt sea-river cargoship Rusich-5 (built 2005) in the Baltic Sea.
Competition rules
This is a maritime photography competition so only images relating to the merchant shipping industry are eligible. Images submitted may reflect shipboard life, show vessels or parts of vessels, illustrate maritime operations, news events or otherwise have a clear relationship to our industry while demonstrating the creative and/or technical skills of the photographer.
- Photographs can be entered as digital images, prints or transparencies and be colour or monochrome. Up to 10 images may be submitted by each contestant.
- Digital images should be submitted as jpg files of at least 1MB, print entries should be of a minimum size of 125mm x 175mm, while transparencies should be 35mm format or larger. Good quality scans of prints or transparencies are also acceptable.
- Images should be the original work of the contestant and taken since 1 January 2011. Images should be without embedded text or date stamps. All entries should be accompanied by a caption showing where and when the photograph was taken, the name of the ship if relevant, the camera used and the name of the photographer.
- Images should not have been digitally created or edited but use of filters, time exposures and other traditional photographic techniques is acceptable.
- A contestant's occupation should be in the shipping or related maritime industries. Those eligible include seafarers, shipowners, shipmanagers, shipbrokers, marine surveyors and inspectors, classification and marine administration officials, port employees, search and rescue and coastguard officers, ship finance, marine insurance and shipping law professionals, as well as students on a course leading to a shipping industry career. The competition is not open to ship enthusiasts, professional photographers or naval personnel, other than those involved in search and rescue, pirate interdiction or other services relating to merchant shipping. Employees of TradeWinds and related companies are also not eligible.
- The winning contestant will receive a Nikon D5100 digital slr or equivalent camera and the TradeWinds' Maritime Photographer of the Year trophy. The winning image and the name of the successful contestant will be published by TradeWinds soon after the closing date.
- Copyright remains with the photographer but TradeWinds may publish submitted images in the course of this or future photographic competitions.
- TradeWinds reserves the right to crop images for the purposes of publication.
- Digital images should be e-mailed to competition@tradewindsnews.com with the attached images clearly captioned along with details of the contestant. Prints or slides can be mailed to TradeWinds Photo Competition, Christian Krohgs gate 16, PO Box 1182 Sentrum, N-0107 Oslo, Norway, or TradeWinds Photo Competition, 25 Farringdon Street, London, EC4A 4AB, England.
- The closing date for entries for the competition is noon GMT on Friday 30 November. A short list of the best entries will be selected by the editor of TradeWinds with the final winner chosen through a readers' vote. Voting closes noon GMT Wednesday 12 December with the winner to be announced shortly afterwards.
- In all matters relating to this competition, the decision of the editor of TradeWinds is final. TradeWinds will do its best to return submitted images if requested but is under no obligation for any lost or damaged.
About the prize
The feature packed 16.2 megapixel Nikon D5100 digital slr with an 18-105mm zoom lens should help the winner take even better photographs.
The successful contestant may, however, choose another digital or film camera or item of photographic equipment of equivalent value.