NAUTILUS P01 NOVEMBER 2009.qxd - Nautilus International

More documents

Recommendations

Info

November 2009 | nautilusint.org | telegraph | 27 ADVERTISEMENT NMCI Services (NMCIS) NMCIS is the commercial division of the National Maritime College of Ireland. Our role is to promote and support the college’s business activities through delivering quality, innovative training and consultative services to our existing and future customers. In addition to our comprehensive schedule of professional maritime short courses, we provide specialised and bespoke training to meet the needs of industry. All of our clients are safe in the knowledge that they are trained by experienced, professional mariners to the highest standards. KEEPING YOU ON COURSE SIMULATION The NMCI is fully equipped with state of the bridge & engineroom simulators. Our simulators are fitted out with instructor stations which allow the control and monitoring of exercises as well as recording students’ performance for analysis. ● 360° full-mission bridge simulator ● 270° full-mission bridge simulator ● 3 x auxiliary 150° bridge simulators ● 12 x NARAS-O/Fleet work simulators Professional Short & Bespoke Courses Please view our wide selection of scheduled short courses for the maritime industry at www.nmci.ie For bespoke, tailored courses please consult with the NMCI Services at services@nmci.ie NMCI delivers training in the following areas: SHORT COURSES STCW ‘95 & NON STCW’ 95 PST, PSSR, EFA, EDH, CPSC, Fire Fighting & Fire Prevention, Advanced Fire Fighting PETROCHEMICAL & GAS TRAINING Liquid Cargo Handling Simulator LNG Liquid Cargo Handling Simulator LPG Liquid Cargo Handling Simulator Product / Chemical Managing SIRE Tanker Vetting Inspections (Owners / Operators / Sea Staff) Specialised Training for Oil Tankers (STCW95A-V/1) Specialised Training for Chemical Tankers (STCW95A-V/1) Specialised Training for Liquefied Gas Tankers (STCW95A-V/1), Fundamentals of Gas (LNG & LPG) Operations (Shore Staff) Introduction to Gas Carriers at the Terminal (Terminal Operators) Introduction to Gas Carriers (Ship Staff) ECDIS (3 Days) Crew Resource Mngmt. (5 Days) Bridge Resource Mngmt (4 Days) Bridge Team Mngmt (5 Days) Bridge Simulation.-On demand Engine room Simulation.-On demand PORT SECTOR COURSES BRMP Pilot Refresher (2.5 Days) Legal Course (Port Sector) Expert Witness Skills for Port Professionals (3/4 Days) Mobile Dockside Crane Operation Container Gantry Crane Operation Docks Operation & Safety Terminal Representative (2Days) MANAGEMENT & TEAM BUILDING COURSES Expert Witness Skills for Maritime Professionals (3/4 Days) Maritime Accident Investigation Skills (4 days) Crisis Management Team Building Shipboard Familiarisation Supported by the IMDO NMCI Services, National Maritime College of Ireland, Ringaskiddy, Co. Cork, Ireland Telephone: 021-4970600 E-mail: services@nmci.ie www.nmci.ie For further information on any of the above please contact NMCI Services:
28 | telegraph | nautilusint.org | November 2009 MARITIME TRAINING No country has more of a claim to be a nation of seafarers than the small island state of Tuvalu, where some 16% of working people are seafarers. Rasmus Thirup Beck and Anders Birch (photographs) report… The land where one in six is a seafarer “ We have no goods of importance to export, so we export labour ” cBritain and the Netherlands like to think of themselves as maritime nations, but they can come nowhere near to matching the Pacific island state of Tuvalu — where, out of a workforce of just over 5,000, 800 are employed on ships all over the world. The seafarers — whose wages represent one-fifth of Tuvalu’s gross domestic product — are educated at Amatuka, a small island of just one square kilometre that is operated in the same way as a ship. Shortly after we land on Amatuka, part of the Funafuti-Atoll, the clock passes half past nine. At the stroke of the half hour, a young man in a sun-bleached sailor’s uniform jumps out of his guard’s hut down by the pier and strikes a big bell. This he will continue to do every half hour in all the six hours of our visit to the Tuvalu Maritime Training Institute, Tuvalu’s naval school, established in 1981. Because here, everything is done as it would be on a ship. ‘We operate the place in the same way as the cargo ships the boys get to work on when they graduate. That’s also why we only speak English. They must know English when they go out into the world,’ says Lee Faiva Moresi, an officer with administrative responsibilities on the island. He shows us around dressed in a snow-white uniform. And the ship operation is reflected in the smallest details. The canteen is called the galley, the small hospital is an infirmary, the student rooms are small cabins, and all conversations are littered with seafarers’ expressions. The board in the middle of the island with over 20 different knots is just the icing on the cake. The just under 40 ‘cadets’ who attend the school, and the 20 that sail on the school’s boat for four months will, when they graduate, join the world’s most concentrated maritime workforce. Tuvalu — which is the world’s fourth smallest country in terms of land area, totalling just 24.4 sq km — has approximately 9,500 inhabitants, 5,000 of whom represent the entire workforce, and of those roughly 800 are seamen. In other words, no less than one-sixth of all working age Tuvaluans work in the shipping industry — serving onboard a total of 39 foreign ships in 2007. Most of them will sign up on German ships, but Maersk has also taken on a few and Taiwan’s Yang Ming Lines has been employing some for the past two years. Tuvalu’s record as a maritime labour supplying country goes back some four decades, to the time when British and German shipping companies first started recruiting from the island nation. So important is seafaring today that the ITF-affiliated Tuvalu Seamen’s Union — which has approximately 1,200 members, some 400 of which work on foreign merchant vessels — is the country’s only registered trade union. Twenty-three-year-old Salomona Garrick Arun is a first-year student at the school. He had started a course at university, but had to stop because he could not afford it. Salomona describes the naval school, which is financed by Tuvalu’s government, as his ‘last chance’ — but after three months there he has gained an appetite for the life of a seafarer: ‘For those of us who are young and single, it’s cool to get out and see some of the world. It becomes something of an adventure.’ Salomona’s ultimate dream is to save up and study to become an officer at a school in Fiji once he has worked the required 18 months. Lee Faiva Moresi and the Tuvaluan seafarers in the classroom Picture:Anders Birch other leaders support this in full, and they also say that Salomona is one of the best in his year. The school is working towards being allowed to offer officer training courses. To do so, it has to secure approval from the <strong>International</strong> Maritime Organisation — and if successful, it would not only affect the school but the whole of Tuvalu. The salaries the seafarers earn — which they usually send home to their families — constitute a full one-fifth of the small country’s gross domestic product of just £10m. ‘And that’s real money that comes to Tuvalu. Virtually all other money is money we receive and which we then use to buy oil, etc,’ notes Lee Faiva Moresi. ‘We have no goods of importance to export, so we export labour.’ The many Tuvaluans employed on the ships can also take a large share of the credit for the fact that the small isolated country has become a more integrated part of the international community. The seamen bring news from the outside — about everything, from the latest fashion to recent political developments — and when there is a global crisis, Tuvalu is part of it too, as even one seafarer losing his job is felt on the state budget. As Lee Faiva Moresi says: ‘The seamen bring the world to Tuvalu.’
Page 1 and 2: Insurance alarm Marine insurers voi
Page 3 and 4: November 2009 | nautilusint.org | t
Page 13 and 14: Language problems blamed for bulker
Page 17 and 18: yal Alfred 6 x 2.indd 1 20/2/09 14:
Page 25: 26 | telegraph | nautilusint.org |
Page 29 and 30: 30 | telegraph | nautilusint.org |
Page 33 and 34: 34 | telegraph | nautilusint.nl | N

NAUTILUS P01 NOVEMBER 2009.qxd - Nautilus International

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?