Rendering of the new National Security Multi-Mission Vessel

With all the talk about School Ships being used while pier side, I just wanted to put my 2 cents in.

I worked on the Empire State as Chief Electrician for two years and cruises, 88 and 89. This allowed me to stay close to NY Harbor during the 333 I must admit that I really enjoyed working with and trying to show the Cadets how real life was out side of school.

Anyway, what I did see was so much fighting between the Ship and School. Little things such as being told to secure power to decks where shoreside instructors were going to be holding classes plus much more BS. I remember talking to several 1st’s about this over coffee or beer (after work) only to be told yep, you would have thought they would have worked together but nope for the most part it was a Them against Us mentality. The losers in my opinion were the cadets. While, I was not there when they activated the Ships for Marad, I did hear about the bitching that the Captain and CE did about having to “Letting THEIR” go out with those DAMN Union Crews on them!

In a perfect world having a ship at each school is a good thing but let’s face it how much is really learned on said ship while they are dead ship tied to the dock? I only saw a handful of well liked cadets that were given the chance to do more than clean and paint.

Maybe a 300 footer to carry DOD cargo to the Azores and replace one of your favorite ships , the POS Geyser or some of the transport tankers that are on MSC charter.

What about a Miami to Havana ferry operated by one or two of the maritime academies.

How about the failed Portland to Yarmouth ferry being jointly run by MMA and one of the Canadian maritime schools? It’s only viable with US and Canadian subsidies.

How about CMA buying Pasha and operating it’s Hawaii service?

Anything will be better and cheaper than building seven new, but useless high cost school ships.

Cadets getting shore time in Havana? Sounds like a good time, sign me up as an instructor.

[QUOTE=LI_Domer;180584]Cadets getting shore time in Havana? Sounds like a good time, sign me up as an instructor.[/QUOTE]

too bad, I had to learn by trial and error.

[QUOTE=Slick Cam;180574]The instructors range from excellent to laughing stock, with the vast majority being worthless throwaways who couldnt cut it sailing in the commercial fleet so they come to the academies to “teach”.[/QUOTE]

Well, that isn’t just a problem with the state schools. . . .

Hah! Cadets are no-responsibility drunks and whoremongers who annoy the shit outta the working crew. They should all ship out as OS and wipers for at least a year to learn the trade before the coddled darlings are given a position of limited responsibility.

that’s a captain, chief, company or union issue you experience. not industry wide. We abuse ours, and if they don’t contribute they go home. After some abuse and they prove themselves worthy we let them learn more officer’ly things and assume more responsibility.

Agree completely z-drive. A cadet that is a liability as described by previous member is sailing on a vessel lacking leadership that is willing to do their job and make the cadet understand their responsibilities or fire them.

I need to take a proactive role here to not allow this thread to spin away into the subject of the worthiness of cadets on a ship but about the training ships for the State Academies.

We need to drop any discussion of a training ship being in commercial trade but there is no good reason a government owned ship cannot be used both for training and for carrying government owned cargo which I strongly advocate. Plus I do not believe in building new when thousands of suitable second hand vessels would be available to be converted to this function. DoD cargoes moving to/from the CONUS to overseas bases do not require a us bottom.

Let’s keep this discussion on the tracks here.

even if they’re dock queens and never move cargo, the cost to buy an existing FOC geared cargo ship and add accommodations would be far cheaper than these new ships. Two birds, one stone. Case closed.

[QUOTE=c.captain;180624]We need to drop any discussion of a training ship being in commercial trade but there is no good reason a government owned ship cannot be used both for training and for carrying government owned cargo which I strongly advocate.[/QUOTE]

What about government subsidies to a private company to have a fleet of coastal trading ships with a training bridge capable of running a slew of cadets and instructors each? I believe they do it that way in some European countries.

[QUOTE=Capt. Phoenix;180627]What about government subsidies to a private company to have a fleet of coastal trading ships with a training bridge capable of running a slew of cadets and instructors each? I believe they do it that way in some European countries.[/QUOTE]

fine and good but that will require a vessel operator to be onboard with the concept plus the negotiations with the Congress to fund such a subsidy and the conversion of the ships if they were privately owned. Since MarAd already has a fleet of ships in the RRF, there would only require additional funding to convert some to training vessels or better still to acquire additional modern motorships into the RRF which were not pure ro/ro and had cargo gear which I would like to see. Also MarAd, MSC and USTRANSCOM would have to negotiate an agreement to apportion a portion of DoD overseas cargo movements to these training/cargo ships but as far as I know, no special enabling legislation would be required to make that happen. I certainly would rather see this than hundreds of millions going to build special training vessels which did not have true military value. We can certainly see this is being driven by the maritime academies looking out for their special interests rather than for the value to the nation as a whole which is plainly wrong and should not be allowed!

One thought is that maybe the MSP can be modified to include additional funding to a vessel owner or owners who would provide additional space on their ships for the purposes of training maritime officer cadets? Right now there is no incentive for any of the ship owners to incur any additional costs in this regard.

[QUOTE=z-drive;180626]even if they’re dock queens and never move cargo, the cost to buy an existing FOC geared cargo ship and add accommodations would be far cheaper than these new ships. Two birds, one stone. Case closed.[/QUOTE]

Agree completely. In the current depressed market a nice bulker can be bought for under $5 million.

Furthermore, a private company to be owned but the academies could be set up to engage in commercial trade. Or the academies could be funded to buy an existing company.

Or private company(s) could receive a subsidy to modify ships for training use by academy(s).

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of MaineMA, MassMA and a Nova Scotia college joint venturing to operate a (subsidized by MARAD and Canada) foreign built Portland to Yarmouth ferry as a training ship. The run is short enough, and the ferry terminal close enough that students could feasibly do one week on at a time. With video recorded and webcast classes, they could keep up, or catch up, on whatever they missed at the academy while they are on the ship. This trade would not compete with any existing US or Canadian ship.

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[QUOTE=z-drive;180626]even if they’re dock queens and never move cargo, the cost to buy an existing FOC geared cargo ship and add accommodations would be far cheaper than these new ships. Two birds, one stone. Case closed.[/QUOTE]

Agree completely. In the current depressed market a nice bulker can be bought for under $5 million.

Furthermore, a private company to be owned but the academies could be set up to engage in commercial trade. Or the academies could be funded to buy an existing company.

Or private company(s) could receive a subsidy to modify ships for training use by academy(s).

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea of MaineMA, MassMA and a Nova Scotia college joint venturing to operate a (subsidized by MARAD and Canada) foreign built Portland to Yarmouth ferry as a training ship. The run is short enough, and the ferry terminal close enough that students could feasibly do one week on at a time. With video recorded and webcast classes, they could keep up, or catch up, on whatever they missed at the academy while they are on the ship. This trade would not compete with any existing US or Canadian ship.

I actually talked to someone here a few years ago with just using a foreign built ship. For like 30-40 million we could buy a brand spanking new ship custom built to what we want. We could put yard and stay gear on it at one part and cranes on another. We could have a of row containers so we get experience with that. One oil tank so we can learn all of that. We could do so much more than just a RO/RO container mix.

yard and stay is about as great an idea as teaching mechanics to work on a horse and buggy. A custom built ship of uselessness. This thread has really identified what would be ideal, and something new and useless isn’t what we need more of.

Then they should take all that antique crap off of the USCG exam! I know working with break bulk cargo when I was on the training ship helped me conceptualize some of those things.

I thought they did?

I believe that there is an issue with government funded school ships carrying any cargo that would otherwise be carried for a profit by commercial companies. In these days of an emaciated US flag shipping industry, it would be difficult to ask the shipping companies to foot the bill for a training ship; or would it? Not sure if it is still the case, but some European and other shipping companies had ships that were used as training vessels and would also move cargo. If I am not mistaken, even Evergreen out of the ROC used to have one and may still. There certainly IS an interest in the US government to keep training maritime officers. Maybe the whole maritime academy idea (state and federal) needs to modernize and try and fit the current state of the US Merchant Marine, such as it is.