95 The new, sleeker training boats line up beside the old picket boats on the River Dart
VPICKETS CHANGE N
ahana vessels arrive at BRNC
aval leaders of tomorrow have state-of-the- art training boats for the first time in more than half a century. Several generations of
Royal Navy officer cadets – including current First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key – have used a flotilla of eight ‘picket’ boats to learn the arts of navigation, seamanship and leadership at Britannia Royal Naval College in Dartmouth. The distinctive blue and white boats which have chugged up and down the Dart since the 1960s (the youngest was delivered in the early ‘70s) were retired at the end of 2021. In their place, eight sleek grey,
futuristic-looking jet-powered boats, packed with identical or similar tech officers will encounter when they join the front-line fleet. The new boats are part of the wider programme – Project Vahana – to replace an assortment of craft and workboats across the Fleet with a small flotilla based on a modular design, to standardise maintenance and spare parts and provide more modern and reliable training. The 15-metre-long boats assigned to the college
Pictures: LPhot Juliet Ritsma
in them. We love them – they’re the closest thing to driving a warship,” said the 38-yearold seaman specialist. “The Vahana boats are the polar opposite: new, modern – you can drive it using a mouse – more reliable, but we can teach more people, using equipment such as ECDIS electronic charting which they’ll find on warships. “They’ll leave Dartmouth more experienced, more capable mariners.” Dan’s team at Sandquay on the Dart have spent the autumn getting to grips with the eight new boats, working out how they will be used to teach the fundamentals of seamanship, understanding the wind and tide and basic manoeuvring. Each boat can train up to 16 cadets at a time – with basic accommodation (bunks, heads, shower, a boiler for brews and microwave to warm meals in). As training reaches its climax, the cadets will live and work on
can reach speeds of 40kts, but are limited to just six on the Dart – although with qualified personnel/ instructors they can venture beyond the river and into the Channel if required. As they are powered by twin jets – like the Navy’s Pacific 24 standard sea boat – rather than old picket boats’ propellers, they handle completely differently from their predecessors, requiring two weeks’ training and assessment by instructors before cadets are allowed to take them out on the Dart. When they do, says Warrant Officer 1st Class Dan Powditch, they’ll find them “a whole different beast” from their predecessors. “There’s quite a lot of nostalgia for the old boat – understandably given how long they have been around for and how many people have trained
the new craft for up to a week. The seats in the rear of the boat have tables, electrical power and network capability allowing all cadets to plug in their laptops and share data between the computers, allowing them to develop basic planning and command of a ‘task group’. Lieutenant Commander Patrick Kelly, Head of the
Maritime Department at BRNC, said the advent of the new boats would “undoubtedly add significant value to the core maritime and leadership training delivered at the college”. “They provide a modern and contemporary platform on which to conduct core craft handling and navigation training. It is, however, during leadership training and assessments where the craft will add the most value. “Moving forward Vahana will support task force style leadership exercises ensuring that Officer Cadets have a task group mindset from the outset of their careers aligning BRNC training with the requirements of the future navy.” This article first appeared in Navy News February 2022
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116
