Having lived on the Isle of Wight for a while as a child, David Burdett returned to visit the Island whilst on leave from the Merchant Navy. He moved with his wife to Island Harbour in the early 1970s and took a role on the Winston Churchill sail training ship with Trinity House.

He was promoted to Second Officer with Trinity House where he stayed for five years. Realising his future prospects weren’t that good, David went into the offshore oil industry, based in Aberdeen for many years. He returned to the Island to work for the Cowes Express hovercraft, then Wightlink, before returning to the offshore oil industry once again. He went on to work for Westminster Dredging and then spent his the last four years before retirement in command of the Government Survey Vessel, the ‘Colonel Templer’.