New UK Merchant Navy cadet training scheme launched

Former cadets of one of Britain’s leading training ships have launched a sponsorship programme that will see a new stream of merchant marine cadets being trained under the name of their college, HMS Worcester.

The programme will initially sponsor and support a small number of Merchant Navy officer cadets for the whole of their three to four-year training, including statutory sea time, to the required standard for sitting for their 1/11 Officer of the Watch certificate and a suitable degree.

The Worcester Merchant Navy Cadetship Scheme (WMNCS) is being launched in partnership with Trinity House of London, the UK’s leading maritime charity.

Major sponsors of WMNCS are expected to include former Worcester cadets, as well as shipping industry and maritime sector leaders. Trinity House, which will be managing the cadets’ training for WMNCS, is matching the funding for each cadet raised by the scheme.

Known as the Incorporated Thames Nautical Training College, HMS Worcester trained thousands of merchant marine cadets – later officers – during more than 100 years of service. The college’s alumni group, Association of Old Worcesters (AOW), many of whom have had full-term maritime industry careers, has agreed to inaugurate the scheme, which is designed with the potential to always have at least one new ‘Worcester’ cadet in training.

Speaking at the scheme’s launch, Peter Melson, ex-Worcester cadet and former Royal Navy Commodore, said: “The current world situation, with its gradual withdrawal from globalisation, has led to an urgent requirement to onshore our training and manning requirements. This training scheme meets the government requirements in this respect and we hope it will attract wide support.”

HMS Worcester was founded in 1862 and trained cadets in a series of four ships, which included the Cutty Sark tea and wool clipper, until the college was integrated into a successor college in 1968.

“In setting up the Worcester scheme we were keen to replicate as far as possible the outstanding training that we received at Worcester,” explains Peter Melson, who is leading the campaign for funding WMNCS. “Training today’s Merchant Navy officers to a safe and professional standard is an exacting business and, understandably, is not cheap. In the past shipping companies generally trained their own cadets but those days are largely gone and a young person looking for a career at sea often has to find their own sources of funds. This is where the Worcester scheme, in tandem with Trinity House, steps in and offers full payment of all training and seagoing costs, after government SMarT assistance is taken into account.”