TRAINING SHIP

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22583, 23 November 1936, Page 10

TRAINING SHIP

VISIT TO AUCKLAND CREW OF AMERICAN CADETS CRUISE IN PACIFIC OCEAN A stay of over a fortnight will be made in Auckland by the American training ship California State, which will airivc on December 20 with a complement of cadets 011 her annual cruise. The ship will be under the command of Lieut.-Commander I!. C. Dymcr, of the United States Naval Reserve, and will later visit Australian ports, Honolulu and certain Pacific islands. The California State, which is based at San Francisco Bay, is used to train young Americans for positions as officers in the United States Merchant Marino. She is equipped with practically all modern navigation and marine engineering devices, and she has a cruising .range of over 10,000 miles. She is of 4500 tons displacement, with a speed of nine knots. There is accommodation for 132 cadets. Cadets in tho California State serve a course of three years, and during that time make three cruises, which supplement the instructional classes given when the vessel is in port. Instruction is divided into a deck course, which includes navigation, seamanship and admiralty law, and an engineering courso of an extensive nature. Graduates of the school are eligible to sit for their licence as third mate or third engineer at an examination held by the United States Government, and a large proportion of the school's graduates fill responsible positions in tho American Mercantile Marine. Cruises by the California State are usually commenced in November and conclude in April. In the last four years the ship has rounded South America and passed up the Atlantic coast to Washington and New York, circumnavigated the world, spent a month in Hawaiian waters, and visited practically every port on tire coast of California.