Britain: An official handbook > 1959

34°
BRITAIN: AN OFFICIAL HANDBOOK
and depends largely for its operation on voluntary workers. Lifeboats were launched
716 times in 1957, and rescued 609 people.
The general lighthouse authority for England and Wales, the Channel Islands
and Gibraltar is the Corporation of Trinity House, which received its first Royal
Charter in the sixteenth century and is administered by a Board of ten Elder
Brethren elected from the Royal Navy and the Merchant Navy. It is also the chief
pilotage authority in the United Kingdom, having the management of all matters
relating to pilots and pilotage in the London area, the English Channel and certain
other coastal districts of the United Kingdom. Lighthouses in Scotland and Ireland
are the responsibility respectively of the Commissioners of Northern Lighthouses
and the Commissioners of Irish Lights. The Ministry of Transport and Civil
Aviation also has certain responsibilities in connection with lighthouses and pilotage.
THE MERCHANT NAVY
Strength
The number of masters, officers and men serving in December 1957 in British
ships on articles of agreement opened or closed in the United Kingdom was about
152,000. In addition, there were about 49,000 seamen serving in United Kingdom
registered ships on articles opened or closed overseas.
Training
Nautical training in the United Kingdom has two distinct objectives, first to give
intending entrants into the Merchant Navy an introductory training before going
to sea—this is commonly known as ‘pre-sea training’—and secondly, to prepare
those who have already performed the requisite sea-service, qualifying them for
admission to the examinations, for the various statutory and other certificates
granted by the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation.
The Merchant Navy Training Board promotes the instruction and studies at sea
of apprentices and cadets who are preparing for their examinations for certificates
of competency as second mate.
The Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation holds examinations for, and issues
certificates of competency to, ships’ officers as master, first mate and second mate
of foreign-going ships, or master and mate of home trade ships and as first class
engineer and second class engineer. Officers may not normally serve on board ships
in these grades unless they hold the appropriate, or a higher, certificate.
Pre-sea training is not compulsory for those who go to sea as apprentices or
cadets but most shipping companies will, in practice, accept only those who have
undergone such a course. There are a number of residential and non-residential
training establishments.
Sea-going engineer officers usually receive their basic training in engineering by
serving a suitable apprenticeship of not less than four years in engineering work¬
shops ashore, although part of this period may be spent at approved courses in
mechanical engineering. An alternative scheme of training has, however, recently
been introduced under which shipping companies themselves select apprentices
for a special course of training consisting of a two-year diploma course in a techni¬
cal college, followed by eighteen months’ training at sea and finally twelve months’
training in an engineering workshop ashore. Sea-going engineer officers are first
employed as junior engineers: they become eligible to take examinations for second
and first class certificates of competency after performing periods of qualifying sea
service.