Efficient Training Ship

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32117, 13 October 1969, Page 1

Efficient Training Ship

(From Our Own Reporter) TIMARU, Oct. 12.

A streamlined Russian training-cargo vessel, the 6500-ton, Vladivostokregistered Meridian, arrived at Timaru at the week-end with 2300 tons of sulphate of ammonia from Niihama, Shikoku, Japan. The ship, under Captain G. G. Proshyants, came by way of Suva, where its 98 trainees were given shore leave.

Built in 1961 especially for training 154 cadets as navigators, engineers, electricians, and radib operators, the ship has a crew of 53 and four instructors. The instructors are captains with scientific degrees who hold chairs in navigation, astronomy, seamanship, and electronics at the High Mariner College, Vladivostok.

The average age of the cadets is 22. A cadet joins the boarding college after

completing the equivalent of the university entrance examination, and after eight months technical training he is required to spend three months aboard the Meridian, which belongs to the college. Training is over five years at . the expense of the State, and the cadet receives 10 roubles a month—a rouble is about SNZI, and is clothed and fed. The sleek ship, as clean and functional as an ocean-going yacht, reflects the high standard of discipline and training.

She has four radar sets, three gyrocompasses, three echosounders, two direction-find-ing stations, one long-range navigation station, special arrangements to obtain meteorological information, 100 sextants, and chronometers. The vessel is one of three such training ships. The others are the Horizon (Black Sea) and Zenith (Baltic Sea). A fourth is being built for

carrying cargo and training cadets. “The vessel pays for itself, in that about 500 cadets are trained yearly,” said Captain Proshyants. As well as providing facilities for a variety of research, the vessel carries stewardesses, laundresses, and female

cooks and bakers. Captain Proshyants has been master for six years. He went to sea in 1930 and commanded a gunboat in the Second World War. He is also a master of science and a professor.

Most of the students speak English fluently. They have a club, library, television, and a cinema. Facilities for sport are excellent. The cadets excel in Rugby, soccer and wrestling, and have represented the college in yachting and rowing in Ministry of Shipping contests. The Meridian is expected to sail for Dunedin and Bluff on Monday. After she arrived on Saturday morning, the sulphate of

; ammonia being transported by road from No. 3 wharf where , the vessel is berthed, lay in : drifts of glistening white i crystal ait the foot of Newmans Hill, at the junction of - Evans and Hobbs Streets on , Timaru’s main thoroughfare. The spillage constituted a > traffic hazard, and the deposit was removed.