When Maine Maritime Academy’s new training ship cruises into Penobscot Bay in the fall of 2024, Castine will be emblazoned on the stern as its home port.
This point of local pride was in danger though when the U.S. Maritime Administration, which owns the training vessels used by the country’s maritime academies, initially proposed to label all the new training ships as being from Norfolk, Virginia – the headquarters of the administration.
But legislators from Maine and other states with maritime academies successfully lobbied the federal government earlier this year to reverse course on the idea. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced Wednesday that Castine, not Norfolk, would be written on the new training ship.
She said the administration’s initial plan for the training ship, called The State of Maine, “defied logic” and was a disservice to the academy’s exceptional maritime education.
“The State of Maine training vessel is a great source of pride for Maine Maritime Academy and for the students and instructors who serve as the ship’s crew,” Collins said in a statement. “MMA’s training vessels have always borne the home port of Castine, Maine, on their sterns, carrying Maine’s rich maritime heritage to ports across the world.”
In 2019, the U.S. appropriated $300 million for the construction of a new training vessel to replace the existing 32-year old ship.
The current crop of training vessels for the maritime colleges are all repurposed boats. Maine’s was originally built for the Navy for oceanographic research and then later given to the academy in 1997.
The new State of Maine will be part of the first class of vessels that are being specifically designed for the academies, said Maine Maritime President Jerry Paul.
He was happy to hear that the administration had changed its mind and would allow Castine to remain emblazoned on the new vessel.
“It’s certainly a source of pride that the training ship State of Maine is homeported in Maine,” he said.
