05/13/2006

Record-Eagle/Tyler Sipe
Students from the Great Lakes Maritime Academy will have a two-week learning venture on the ship State of Michigan.

Maritime ship makes first training voyage

Former spy ship now teaching merchant sailors

By tom carr

tcarr@record-eagle.com

and christine finger

cfinger@record-eagle.com

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
Great Lakes Maritime Academy cadet Arec Komuda hands boxes of food to other cadets as they load the State of Michigan at its dock at Northwestern Michigan College's Great Lakes Campus. The ship was scheduled to embark this morning on its first two-week training trip.

TRAVERSE CITY — The Great Lakes Maritime Academy's ship State of Michigan is embarking on its first training tour, scheduled to ship out this morning with 50 cadets and a crew of 14.

Its 1,801-mile voyage is expected to cost $52,300 for food and fuel alone, including $35,000 for diesel fuel, officials said. The academy is part of Northwestern Michigan College.

The trip is funded through the academy's $977,000 budget.

Joshua Tamasovich looked forward to launching the ship as he and others on Friday helped load groceries, remove scaffolding used to paint the deck, and make other preparations.

"It's what I'm going to be doing for the rest of my life, so I'd better like it," said Tamasovich, 25, a first-year cadet from Asheville, N.C. "It beats being in an office all day, sitting in a cubicle."

During its first stop in Sault Ste. Marie, those on board will participate in a security drill with local and federal agencies.

Open house tours are scheduled during stops in Marquette, Houghton, Port Huron and Duluth, Minn.

The ship will not carry cargo, though the cadets likely will work on Great Lakes cargo ships after graduating, said Mike Surgalski, captain of the ship for the voyage. This particular tour will provide training in navigation and maintaining the ship's complex mechanical functions.

The academy hopes to continue using the vessel for first-year cadets' initial lakes training. That will help prepare them for stints on commercial vessels later in their schooling.

The 225-foot-long, four-deck vessel formerly was deployed around the world by the U.S. Navy for submarine surveillance under the name Persistent. After the Cold War, it became a Coast Guard drug ship.

All spy equipment has been removed, Surgalski said. What used to be the "spook room," rife with surveillance equipment, is now a classroom.

A mast that supported surveillance radar has been removed and stands on the dock behind NMC's Great Lakes Campus, which houses the academy.

When the ship is docked, the academy uses it almost daily, said Dave Sobolewski, chief of the voyage.

The dock behind the Great Lake Campus on West Bay is a secure facility, as deemed by the Department of Homeland Security, officials said.

Cruise ships dock there a few times a year and their crews must uphold federal security requirements.

The Homeland Security Department did not return a request for comment about the ship and training cruise on Friday.

Since it's a federally owned ship — the Maritime Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Transportation, oversees the academy and owns the vessel — the crew has access to handcuffs and leg irons, and restricts entry to the engine room and other areas while giving tours. The weapons locker from the ship's Navy days is now empty.

The academy currently has 108 students and expects about 130 students next fall, said John Tanner, superintendent of the maritime program. The goal is to increase enrollment to 200 students, and he said tours help recruit students.

The ship on this trip was scheduled to drop a weather buoy for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Michigan, but the buoy is not ready. Tanner said they plan to complete that task in July, possibly during the National Cherry Festival.

The ship went on two-week cruises with about 35 cadets in 2003 and 2004, but those trips helped determine necessary upgrades before the ship received $3.9 in mostly federally funded improvements.

Tanner said the trip helps meet the nine months of sea time cadets must fulfill as part of the internationally certified program.

Before NMC's maritime academy received the training ship in 2002, cadets received all training on commercial ships.

Maritime academy students don't currently pay extra to cover the tour, but Tanner said that will change once the school has firm cost figures for such trips.

Faculty costs for the voyage are included in contracts for maritime academy instructors.

Tanner said NMC's typical faculty contract runs nine months and the academy's faculty works 10 months. Cadets start two weeks before other students, in addition to the two-week training trip aboard ship.

This is the first year maritime academy faculty have worked under the 10-month contract. The extra month totals about $30,000 in maritime academy faculty costs.