LIVERPOOL Daily Post journalist Peter Elson has won Britain’s most prestigious award for maritime writers.

He received the Maritime Foundation’s Desmond Wettern Media Award 2009 from HRH The Princess Royal and the First Sea Lord at a presentation in London.

Chosen from a short-list of 11 national writers, Peter is only the second winner from outside London.

The late Desmond Wettern was a nationally-renowned maritime writer and a former shipping correspondent for the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo, a role Peter now has.

Princess Anne presented Peter with a cut-glass crystal ship’s decanter and told him: “This is something good for you to remember the evening with.”

She asked him about his work as a shipping correspondent and the importance of reporting on maritime matters in Liverpool.

The First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, said that Peter’s award was “well-deserved for an impressive body of work.”

Admiral Stanhope praised the Daily Post for its increased maritime coverage, saying this was vital to combat “sea-blindness”, when the UK relied so heavily on sea-trade.

He presented Peter with a bottle of port for his decanter, telling him naval tradition meant he must “never let it run dry.”