PRE SEA TRAINING

I have always wanted to share my experiences at sea with everybody. And thus this write up.

My pre sea training started in Sept 1990 at the country’s premier shipping company,

The Shipping Corporation of India’s training centre, Maritime Training Institute,

which in located at Powai in Mumbai. The training was for a period of 3 months. Our

batch was made up of about 40 guys from different parts of India. We were all put in

in the hostel in MTI.

Our morning starts early at 0530. We assemble outside our hostel, where we were

made do physical training excercises, running make us fit for the tough life ahead.

After this, we were given time to have our breakfast and then reassemble for our

march towards the main block which was about 1 km away from the hostel.

Classes were conducted in the subjects of stability, principles of navigation, practical

navigation, cargo work, meteorology, seamanship, electronics and electricity by

master mariners. We had practical sessions in seamanship, where we were taught

seamanship techniques which included rope work. Our classes normally ends at

1800, after which, we spend our time studying. We have to switch off the lights by

2200 hrs.

After one month of training, the epaulette ceremony was held for us, were we were

presented with the first ever epaulettes we were going to wear by the CMD of SCI.

Every Saturday, we were taken to the IIT, Powai swimming pool for swimming

classes. We were made to swim with life jackets on, at first and then without

lifejackets. After this we were taken on ship visits to Bombay port, where we went on

board various ships of SCI and learnt what a ship looked like and how the various

departments of the ship functioned.

Sunday was the weekly day off for us. We were allowed to go out and come back

before evening. The tamil guys in our batch used to go to Matunga for some good

south indian food, watch a tamil movie there and return by evening.

We were taught yoga and karate to increase our stamina and level of physical fitness

from the second month onwards during the mornings, instead of the physical

excercises.

We had to undergo certain courses like basic first aid, personal survival techniques

and basic fire fighting during the pre sea training as well. Theory as well as practicals

were conducted for these courses. For personal survival, we had to dive from a diving

board 5 m high into the swimming pool and swim towards a liferaft and board it. And

this was qute a nightmare for many of my batchmates.

For fire fighting, we were made to crawl through a maze sort of arrangement with our

eyes blindfolded. The entry and exit were through different places. Our progress was

being continuously monitored, so no chances of cheating. The next part was using

different types of fire extinguishers on different types of fires. After this we were

made to wear breathing apparatus and carry a dummy from the top of the mock-up to

the bottom. After finishing this, we were made to enter the mock-up from the top, go

inside and come out from the bottom and fire was in full rage inside, making seeing

virtually impossible. The final test was going inside the mock-up with the breathing

apparatus , extinguishing the fire and carrying the dummy all the way down. And

believe me, this is really very difficult.

After completion of three months of such vigorous training, we had to undergo exams

in all the subjects, written as well as orals. After the exams, was the passing out

parade, where we were given our certificates by the CMD of SCI.

Thus ended our pre sea training on December 09^th, 1990 and we were all ready to

face the high seas in all its glory and fervour.

More to continue on the ships I served, so far.