All seafarers need sea training, but not all sea-farers are created equally. The Navy has one system for recruitment and training, while the merchant has a different system for different purposes. The Navy demonstrably performs very well with a young and largely inexperienced crew, with a “management” staff of officers that turns over half its complement each year, and in a working environment that must rebuild itself from scratch approximately every eighteen months. These young people are sent down to the sea in ships without even basic seamanship skills such as how to read a compass or tie a bowline.
Not all ships are created equal. Modern merchant vessels typically have a crew of a few dozen people. Much smaller warships have a crew of several hundred sailors, and aircraft carriers have a crew of thousands. Most of the activities of warship crews entail a team operating a complex weapon system in a manner that is largely independent of being at sea, so significant training can be accomplished at shore-side schools. Warships also require substantial damage control parties composed of crew members who can be excused from duties at other battlestations. At any given time, a substantial number of warship crew members are trainees experiencing their first sea voyage. Merchant ships have crews that are far more experienced and have better local knowledge than on Navy ships.
The Department of the Navy operates numerous merchant-type ships manned by civilian crews employed as civil service mariners (CIVMARS). The fleet is made up of a variety of classes of ships. One CNA paper prepared for the Military Sealift Command found that MSC could operate all four Navy Command ships (LCC-19/20 and AGF-3/11) with 618 civilian mariners compared with 1,533 Navy personn el do ing essentially the same functions. Such a substantial reduction of operating personnel is not unusual when USN ships are taken over by MSC. In the past, AOs, AEs, AFSs, and AOEs have been transferred to MSC for operation by civil service mariners, and some towed array ships and submarine rescue ships have been outsourced to commercial operators — all at considerable savings to the Navy in both military billets and cost.
There are seven maritime academies in the U.S. that educate and train individuals to become officers in the merchant marine. Graduates receive college degrees and U.S. Coast Guard licenses as STCW qualified deck or engineering officers. This is the traditional path to become a licensed United States Merchant Marine Officer. Licensed mariners fill many of the Merchant Marine's leadership and training positions, directing the organization and making key decisions across the board.
The U.S. maritime industry operates high quality, state-of-the-art training facilities that provide a wide variety of courses for mariners entering the industry as well as those upgrading their qualifications. Like most jobs, unlicensed members of a merchant vessel’s crew are either skilled or entry-level (unskilled) or skilled. Entry-level mariners do not have afloat skills. Unlicensed mariners are the backbone of the Merchant Marine workforce, an army of skilled and newly-trained workers with little or no prior experience afloat. These mariners hold "certifications" rather than licenses, though they can and often do advance into the licensed ranks.
A training ship a ship equipped with instructors, officers, etc., to train recruits for the sea. There is no substitute for getting students out to sea in the real thing. Having the training ship maintained by students earned an enviable reputation for hands-on practical type of seagoing people, which is extremely valuable. There exists no comprehensive theoretical foundation for understanding of maritime education and training. However, there is a long history and a considerable body of empirical evidence.
The processes by which men and women are trained for maritime combat involve both individual and collective efforts. The complexities of modern combatants and the systems that they carry mean that naval personnel of all ranks and specialisations require intelligence and a high level of education from the outset, while the provision of quality basic and specialist training on entry is essential, particularly in an era of minimum manning concepts. It is a reality, however, that the individual’s training as a sailor will not be completed until after he or she has had the first hand experience of seagoing.
Units newly commissioned or operational after extended periods of leave and maintenance, both of which usually involve considerable changeover of personnel, cannot be expected to conduct operations with any degree of efficiency. Ships in these circumstances require to conduct harbour training and system checks, before they go to sea to shake down to achieve minimum standards of safety and work up to achieve the operational capability required.
The terms “Midshipman” and “Cadet” aree used interchangeably at sea. They both have approximately the same meaning. Historically, "Midshipman" was a term given to an apprentice officer aboard US Naval ships who was required to sleep “amidships” (in the “house” in the middle of the ship where the officers lived and the ship was navigated). The term "Cadet" originally came from France. The word means "little Chief". This was later associated with noblemen's sons who were junior officers. Finally, the term applied to young men and women who were learning to become Officers.
All mariners employed aboard United States merchant vessels greater than 100 Gross Register Tons (Domestic Tonnage), except operators of uninspected passenger vessels, are required to have a valid U.S. Merchant Mariner Credential (MMC). An MMC is not a guarantee of finding work, but rather a certification allowing to work in the shipboard merchant marine industry. The International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification, and Watchkeeping for Seafarers, 1978 (STCW) apply depending on the vessel, capacity, and route of service. Sea service is a measure of a mariner’s lifetime experience on boats, whether recreational, commercial, or military. It may be counted from the day a mariner turns age 16 and accumulates over his or her lifetime, for a minimum of 360 days of service within the past 5 years. An applicant for a National officer endorsement must have at least 3 months of required service on vessels of appropriate tonnage or horsepower within the 3 years immediately preceding the date of application.
Any mariner who works aboard a ship that operates outside the U.S. Territorial Boundary Line must hold an STCW endorsement. Able seamen and ordinary seamen operate the vessel and its deck equipment under officer supervision. On tankers, mariners are designated to hook up hoses, operate pumps, and clean tanks. Ordinary Seaman means an “entry-level” unlicensed member of the deck department. Able Seaman means qualified member of the deck department that may work as a watchstander and/or day worker.
The U.S. Merchant Marine Academy's "Sea Year" is a period in both the sophomore and junior years when cadets are assigned to a variety of operating U.S. - flag merchant vessels to transverse the trade routes of the Seven Seas. During Sea Year, cadets experience firsthand the life of a merchant mariner. Cadets put their classroom knowledge to the test in a real-life environment - all this while visiting an average of 18 foreign countries. Sea Year is a part of the fabric of Kings Point, dating back to 1942. Over the decades, midshipmen have engaged in peacetime commerce, have transported military supplies to the Persian Gulf and to Kosovo, and have been part of humanitarian missions to Haiti and Somalia. Sea Year training provides the basic shipboard training requirements needed to qualify as a Third Mate or Third Assistant Engineer licensed by the United States Coast Guard.
Shiphandling simulators, or “Bridge Operations Simulators” have been made possible because the ship motion mathematical models are reasonably well understood, and because the equations are manageable on modern minicomputers, and the visual imagery is adequately convincing. The willing trainee is quickly immersed in the dynamics of the scenario, a controlled and evaluated learning experience. For the same reasons the blinker lights, night vision, and radar observer trainers are good, bridge operations trainers are good and contribute to effective competence-building in seafarers.
Sea training in a proper training ship that is conducted as an extension of an ashore training program is most time-effective. The ashore training must include alongside the dock use of the ship-as-laboratory, and naturally includes guided classroom and self-study, and exercise on training devices, such as blinkers and bridge operations simulators. Supplementary exposure to actual commercial operations, visits or short tours on board operating units, provide familiarization with functions of personal relationships.
The Navy is confronted with the problem of how best to receive and shake down into place an influx of undisciplined and inexperienced land lubbers without manifest injury to discipline and efficiency. In order to meet these demands, inexperienced people, apprentices and landsmen, must be enlisted and trained for the service expected of them, before they can be of use in the Navy.
On a training ships a recruit would acquire a good working knowledge of most basic nautical subjects in a natural manner; that is, by being required to perform the duties pertaining to them constantly while the vessel is under way, anchoring, or getting under way. While steaming the log and lead would be kept going continually. The system contemplates having the recruits do all the work of the vessel under proper supervision, except in emergencies, going in and out of port, etc., when it might not be deemed advisable. In addition, individual instruction and drills would be given. The feeling of responsibility, which comes to a sailor when required to do the regular work of the vessel, materially aids in the rapid acquirement of the knowledge of their duties.
The U.S. methods of education and training for the sea are far different from the European. In 1857 the Royal Navy, acting upon the report of a committee appointed in the previous year - adopted a plan of a training-ship for naval cadets, through which all those joining the service for the future were to pass. The age of entry into the training-ship was to be from thirteen to fifteen, and a candidate was required to pass an examination in the following subjeets: Latin or French; geography; Scripture history; arithmetic, including proportion and fractions; algebra as far as fractions ; and Euclid as far as the thirty-second proposition of the first book. Candidates over fourteen years of age were also required to have a knowledge of the use of the globes, with definitions, algebra to simple equations, the whole of the first book of Euclid, and the elements of plane trigonometry.
Six months was the minimum and twelve months the maximum time allowed in the training-ship, according to age, those joining under fourteen being allowed the whole year’s instruction. At the termination of the regulated period, the cadet had to undergo a second examination, including all the subjects of the previous one, except Latin; and in addition to these, involution and evolution, simple equations, the elements of geometry, and of plane and spherical trigonometry, the simple rules of navigation, the use of nautical instruments, French, and a slight knowledge of surveying and cqnstructing charts.
If the cadet passed this examination satisfactorily, he was forthwith appointed to a sea-going ship, and at the expiration of fifteen months’ service he was eligible for the rating of midshipman upon passing a further examination. If he failed in the examination on leaving the training-ship, he was to be rejected from the service entirely.
The plan of instruction in the training-ship likewise comprised an elaborate course of seamanship, far more suited to the capacity of a midshipman of three years’ standing than to a boy fresh from the shore. And when it is considered that, in addition to all this, the cadets were likewise to learn drawing, and to attend lectures upon steam, chemistry, astronomy, mechanics, and hydrostatics — not to mention the athletic exercises of the cutlass-drill, swimming, and gymnastics — and that the time allowed for the raw schoolboy to get through this pro— gramme was from six to twelve months; it may well be imagined what a process of “cram” it must have been, even to gain a superficial knowledge of such a variety of subjects, all previously unknown, and many perhaps even unheard of, by him; and how extremely improbable it was that learning thus preternaturally acquired could be afterwards retained. In fact, the Admiralty had overshot the mark, and had gone to the opposite extreme.
A vital influence in the history of maritime education and training was the vision of Admiral Stephen B. Luce of the U.S. Navy. In addition to his landmark achievements in Navy education and training, he initiated the first most important step beyond pure apprenticeship of merchant seafarers “before the mast.” He created the schoolship concept embodied in Congressional legislation in 1874. The original concept has withstood the test of time, and through periods of dreadful challenge to the success of the merchant marine in national defense. Admiral Luce is said to have delivered the first authorized training ship himself, directly out of the Boston Naval Shipyard refit.
Since late in the Nineteenth Century merchante marine officers have been trained at State Maritime Academies which, until recently, consisted largely of well-outfitted schoolships. The history of these schools is a colorful story of the ships that were used to train the officers during their 2-year course. During peacetime, these vessels took extended cruises around the world and they served as both home and classroom to the deck and engine cadets throughout their training.
Most of these ships were former warships retired by the Navy. The first vessel used by the New York State Maritime Academy was the St. Mary's, a former sloop which served the school for 34 years. Another schoolship used at this Academy was the U. S. S. Newport, a barkentine-rigged auxiliary steam gunboat. The Newport trained deck and engine cadets until 1932 when another Navy ship, the U. S. S. Proycyon became the center of training activity. This ship was renamed the Empire State while it was assigned exclusively to the New York State Maritime Academy. However, when this vessel was taken over by the Training Organization of the War Shipping Administration it was renamed the United States Maritime Service Training Ship American Pilot. This training vessel is currently used to train cadet-midshipmen from the academies at Maine, Massachusetts, and New York. The USS Enterprise, a wooden, barkrigged steam vessel, was the first ship used by the Cadets at Massachusetts. The most famous schoolship at the Pennsylvania Maritime Academy was the USS Annapolis, a ship of exceptional beauty that combined the old and new in ship design. Her lines resembled those of a Clipper ship but her beams and upper shell plating were of steel and her bottom and decks were of wood. She was rigged for sails and she had engines. As a schoolship, the Annapolis traveled 200,000 miles logged on 31 cruises.
Admiral Luce envisioned a system that eventually produced a three-tier evaluation of training time-effectiveness. Not all sea time has the same time-effectiveness of training. There is compelling empirical evidence that for entry-level officer training, the least time effective is experience not supervised or critically evaluated by a training officer. The improvement in time-effectiveness is about three-to-one if the student officer is officially assigned as such, currently documented as a cadet observer, with a sea project to be completed, reviewed, and evaluated. Time-effectiveness is further improved about two-to-one by completing the sea time under continuous supervision of qualified training officers excuting a training syllabus that is the at-sea complement to training ashore in a dedicated training ship.
Since 1968 Maine Maritine Academy used a combination of training ship and commercial ship sea time for all cadets. It was formalized into the program such that all cadets spent two months on the training ship at the end of both the freshman and junior academic years and during the summer after their sophomore year they were assigned to various commercial vessels for at least two months. The training ship is truly a working laboratory during the entire year. Students are assigned maintenance and watch duties as a routine part of their daily program. During the course of four years all students spend a considerable amount of time working and standing watches on the ship.
On the training ship recruits are given instruction and practical training in their specialties. Strict discipline is maintained. Recreational facilities such as sports, movies, and books will be provided. Short stops are made at foreign and domestic ports. Advantage may be taken of opportunities to inspect shipbuilding yards, repair plants, and other places of practical interest. Watches and the customary routine of vessels are a part of the recruit training aboard ship.
An alternative to training ships might be to require all US flag ships to provide a cadet bunkroom for six to eight cadets. Eventually this would provide sufficient berthing for all maritime cadets, federal and state, and thus eliminate the need for training ships. This is with a long range objective of having accommodations for one, two-to-three month cruise per year for all state academy cadets aboard a commerical ship. This would reduce the number of cadets aboard training ship cruises for better training and significantly reduce the requirements both in size and number for new training ships). The combination of both training ship and commercial ship experience is the ideal to strive for.
The design of new training ships should consider what else the ship might do, such as carry military or aid cargo, act as a trade fair ship and as an instrument of foreign policy in such activities as “people to people” programs. Substantial advances have been made in the application of various modern technology applications to everyday maritime industrial practice. Large ULCCs, Container Vessels and LNG carriers are the rule rather than the exception. Budgetary considerations render it extremely difficult for institutions that rely primarily on state funding to stay current with the expensive training simulators and laboratory equipment necessary to provide realistic education in this area of high technology.
The traditional knowledge in seamanship, navigation, meteorology, ship stability construction and maintenance remain the cornerstones of a deck officer's initial training. Similarly diesel engineering, auxiliaries, mechanics, boilers and turbines are basic necessities for engineering officers. And it is of paramount importance that a sound academic program be operated in conjunction with such practical training in order that it is possible for the technical material to be transmitted at a sound professional level. Somehow, it's imputed that more cadet seatime will reduce collisions, groundings, and pollution, but there is no evidence that these are being caused by entry-level officers who are school ship graduates.
