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All Hands 2020-1 (UK Spring) P a g e 8

His ambitions for the future? His first priority is to qualify and get his CoC (Certificate of Competency) and he
st
intends to continue on cruise ships as he does like the food! Longer term he would like to progress to 1 Officer
and then reassess his options. One day he would like to take a shore job. While working onboard he has seen how
vital shore based support is to the seagoing operation but noted that not many shore personnel have seagoing
experience, he believes his seagoing qualifications and experience would bring a valuable insight to a shore role.
The final Officer Cadet to speak was Rosie Staples whom I had the pleasure of hosting at the lunch, Rosie also
had a very interesting background before commencing her Officer Cadet training.

Officer Cadet Rosamund (Rosie) Staples: Rosie’s father was a keen sailor but did not serve in the Merchant
Navy. Her father and grandfather taught her to sail in Emsworth which is a small town in Hampshire near the
border of West Sussex. It lies at the north end of an arm of Chichester Harbour, a large and shallow inlet from the
English Channel, a perfect location to learn how to sail.
Rosie was educated in Portsmouth and Scotland so ended up with a mixture of GCSEs, Scottish Highers and A-
levels in Geography, Earth Science, Maths and English Literature. She played rugby at school and now plays for
Portsmouth Valkyries as a second row forward.
She had always wanted to go to sea and on leaving school at 18 was a direct midshipman entrant into the Royal
Navy. She successfully passed out of Dartmouth as a Sub-Lieutenant and was appointed to her first ship, an
th
important milestone at the start of a career in the Royal Navy. Unfortunately just before her 20 birthday fate took
a hand when she was involved in a car accident and as a result she was invalided out of the Navy. Undaunted she
went to University at Aberystwyth but studied in Canada, New Zealand, and Svalbard reading Earth Science.
After graduating she joined the Metropolitan Police after what she describes as a summer messing around teaching
dinghy sailing. While in the Police Service full time, she attended University part time on her rest days and
evenings to obtain a Master’s Degree in Disaster Resilience and Crisis Management.
After two years’ service in the police force she left to return to a career at sea, this time in the Merchant Navy. It
was her Dad who mentioned Warsash to her and she is not sure if she will ever be able to give him the credit he
deserves for that suggestion. She is sponsored by MEF ( Maritime Educational Foundation) and her training
company is SSTG (Ship Safe Training Group) based in Rochester Kent.

For the third time Rosie commenced training from the base level, this time as an Officer Cadet (Navigating) which
shows remarkable determination and resilience to pursue a chosen career. On completion of Phase 1 study at
Warsash she joined her first ship, the Saga Sapphire, for the next phase of her training at sea, aboard which she
served for six months. A lot of this period was spent in the Baltic but they also went to Canada. Her final month
was on Saga Cruises new ship the Spirit of Discovery for the final stage of its build in the shipyard, sea trials and
inaugural cruise. She says she learnt a lot and met some really interesting and supportive people, but long term is
not sure if she would like to work in the cruise industry.

The outstanding moment of her sea time was when her Captain allowed her take the con when anchoring in the
Norwegian Fjords. She felt it was incredible that someone trusted her with that responsibility albeit that he was
present. I would only add from a professional point of view that those in the industry proposing to replace sea
time by simulator time should note that you cannot ever replicate that same feeling in a simulator.
Her ambitions for the future? Like her colleagues she must now complete her Phase 3 training, obtain her CoC
(Certificate of Competency) and then obtain her first seagoing appointment as a qualified officer. In the future she
would like to be in command and eventually to work ashore in a Crisis Management/Resilience Role, possibly in
Search and Rescue where she can utilise her Master’s Degree. To quote Rosie, “as it cost so much to get I may as
well use it”.
I hope all our readers will agree that the three Officer Cadets gave a very good account of themselves, which I
believe has given all us ‘old salts’ a flavour of training for a career at sea in the modern era.

2.3 Australian Branch News – David Montgomery (MontgomeryD63)
Plans are now well advanced for our Annual General Meeting and Reunion. It will be held in Sydney on 6th and
7th of October. We will be joining with a new grouping in Sydney of ex Sea School Graduates (from Conway,
Worcester, Pangbourne, Warsash, General Botha) for lunch on the 6th and will cruise Sydney harbour again for
lunch on the 7th. If any Warsash Members happen to be visiting Australia in October they will be most welcome
to join with us; just let David know, ddorsova7@bigpond.com, so we can keep an eye on numbers and organise
easy access to the various locations.