Graham Hawkes, founder and chief engineer of Hawkes Ocean Technologies

When film director James Cameron became the first man to complete a solo trip to the deepest point in the ocean, Graham Hawkes was happy to be thousands of miles away, diving in the two-man winged submersible he had built for billionaire businessman Tom Perkins. Of course, most people would be happy in this situation, and for Hawkes it’s a regular part of his routine - he has spent the past four decades designing manned underwater vehicles for research, industry and personal pleasure. But on that day he was particularly glad to be away from civilisation, as Cameron and his team were busy achieving what Hawkes had been striving for for more than 20 years.

The recent efforts of several groups to single-handedly reach the bottom of the Mariana Trench in the Pacific Ocean (oceanographers Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard made the first journey in 1960) had become something of a media-constructed race. Cameron’s ‘competitors’ included one team backed by Virgin Oceanic that had bought the craft Hawkes designed for the late businessman and adventurer Steve Fossett. However, the DeepFlight Challenger vehicle had been ready for sea trials by the time Fossett died in 2007, and its creator was so confident it would succeed that for him the challenge was already complete.