Alistair Baillie

Well today started off as usual with breakfast at 0730, followed by muster at 0800. It was cut rather short due to it being wet (it was totally pouring down) which left us to return to our rooms and be bored for a few hours until our first induction lecture of the day which was at 1040 and was on Ship & Port Operations.

It consisted of a us being told all about one of the lecturers careers and how she went into the merchant navy at 16, worked on several different types of ships before coming back to WMA to teach.

It was quite interesting and introduced some more Acronyms to us – there’s hundreds of these things. She also gave a very brief over view of what happens when a ship is approaching port, and how we speak to the VTS (Vessel Traffic Services – A bit like air traffic control for ships) people as we enter there area of operation.

Then it was lunch time, followed by the second and last lecture of the day which was about deck maintenance and personal safety. Essentially we learned that all ships are held together by paint, and if you don’t paint it properly it sinks. The lecture included various photo’s of ships sinking, and the last 20 minutes was a video on a tanker that sunk off coast of Brittany – very reassuring to be showing to people on their first week!

Tonight at 1600 ‘group 3’ have our library inductions then it will be off to dinner.

Friday seems to be taken up by numerous lectures in the morning and early afternoon, then that’s me off until Monday morning when we wonder down to the workshop to do our EDH (Efficient Deck Hand) short course which runs for the week and covers tying knots and how to tie ships up to the dock and other rope work things such as bosons chair and ladders etc.

The week after that we get to do our “Basic Safety Week” where we do short courses in Personal Safety & Social Responsibility (1/2 a day), Fire Prevention & Fire Fighting (2 ½ days), Personal Survival Techniques (1 day) and lastly Elementary First Aid (1 day). The week occupied by them should be great as most stuff runs all day so we shouldn’t be hanging around doing nothing for long periods of time, and most of it sounds fun.