CASTINE, Maine — Students and crew aboard Maine Maritime Academy’s training ship will visit ports in Bermuda, Curacao and the southern U.S. during the two-month cruise that begins in early May.
Each spring, more than 200 MMA students as well as dozens of officers and crew members sail the 500-foot State of Maine to foreign and domestic ports as part of the academy’s training and licensing programs. Approximately 240 students are expected to participate this year.
The training cruise, which begins May 8 in Castine, is slated to visit the following ports: Galveston, Texas, May 18-21; Wilemstad, Curacao, June 1-4; St. Georges, Bermuda, June 11-14; and Charleston, S.C., June 22-25.
Before returning to Castine on June 30, the ship will stop in Searsport to pick up parents of upperclass students so parents can observe the students in action during the final leg of the cruise.
A former oceanographic research vessel for the U.S. Navy, the State of Maine measures 500 feet long and weighs approximately 16,000 tons. The current vessel, which was converted into a training ship for MMA in 1997, is the fourth ship to bear the name State of Maine.
The annual cruise typically involves freshmen and juniors, with the latter running much of the day-to-day operations of the ship under the supervision of the professional officers and crew. Sophomores at MMA are assigned to merchant ships to gain at-sea experience.
During the cruise, the students and crew will launch several small, unmanned sailboats that are used by school and community groups to study ocean wind and current passages. This is MMA’s sixth consecutive year participating in the program organized by Belfast-based Educational Passages.
The State of Maine is commanded by Capt. Leslie B. Eadie III, a 1976 MMA graduate.
Last year’s cruise visited ports in Malta, Italy, Ireland and Virginia. Past training cruise destinations have included Aruba, Brazil, Belgium, Estonia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Iceland, Poland, Russia and Spain.
The public can monitor the progress of the MMA training cruise through MMA’s “Follow the Voyage” online ship-tracking program, available at www.mainemaritime.edu.
It’s your tax money that is funding this cruise for the nearly 1/2 of the student body that are from out of state… $9,000,000,000 per year (and $100 million over the next decade) and all of it subsidized by cutting state services, the judicial system, EPA, forestry, DHHS, police, highways, and K-12 schools. Enjoy the travel reports that will be published aplenty. It’s time the MMA be privatized.
I’m not sure what your talking about but my son attends this school and gets 2,000 dollars a year from the school. We live in Maine so I guess all that money doesn’t go to lowering cost for kids instate or not.
and he gets $9,000 each year from the taxpayers.. compare that to UMS or a community college.
Again, I get his financial award letter every year and not once has there been a 9,000 award on it. He gets 1,000 each semester from the school. All other money he gets is not directly from the school he gets work study and loans….9,000 would be great but it’s not a truth perhaps your information is wrong.
And I pay the out of state tuition which amounts to almost $37,000 and I also get my son’s financial aid award letter…not once have I seen where it shows a $9,000 award! Just for grins, I went to the UMO website and calculated what I would have paid for my son to attend that school and (shock and amazement) it was just about the same price. I don’t know what your ongoing beef is with MMA…
I don’t have an ongoing beef with MMA…my son attends I was just defending the fact that he has never recieved a grant of this amount. He paid for his “summer cruise” and everything else that was afliated with his education. Coolfusion sounds like he knows what’s going on around him — I have to break it to him but he’s WRONG! in regards to students getting that money.
Wasn’t insinuating that you had the beef. I apologize. Coolfusion takes every opportunity to slam MMA…the response should have been directed at him.
Perhaps he’s a bit uptight because he couldn’t make it through the regiment or never was accepted to begin with. These kids work hard to get their education and most of them that I’ve spoken to owe between 60 -80 thousand dollars when they walk away from school. Many would work in Maine if jobs were available at the pay rate they need in order to make their student loan payments — wake up Coolfusion — there aren’t jobs in Maine for our children!
One of the big things is that for all of the coastline that Maine has there are hardly any opportunities for these kids to get good paying jobs there in Maine. Other than Portland where else can one of these container ships pull in? I’m a native Maine girl and a UMO grad to boot and absolutely love the Maine I grew up in but let’s face it my son has a better opportunity at getting a good job here in the Hampton Roads, VA area than up there in Maine. Virginia has put the money into building up their commercial shipping ports and worked hard at getting companies to come…Maine really hasn’t.
A couple years back there was speculation that Coolfusion flunked out of MMA…I have to believe there is some personal grudge there because he sure doesn’t attack UMO like he does MMA!
Thats $9,000,000 About what um Orono spends on sports Out of tax payer money. Still its a lot . I do not wish to pay for some rich mama’s Boys school . Not one ever gave me a dime to pay for college.
Trust me no one is giving me a dime to pay for my son’s MMA eduction!
No you pay . My point is not about MMA so much as about tax dollars colleges get and waist.
You really need to study where this money comes from, what it accomplishes for both the State and country. I did my cruises a long time ago and I dare say that I pay a lot in Maine taxes right now. They can use what ever they want from my bucks.
I’ve had two sons in MMA….and I’m far from rich and my boys have taken out loans to pay for their education at MMA….they have never received $9000 ever…..have worked their way through school and the cruise fees are part of their school loans…get your facts straight before you post the nonsense please…….
There is a $9,000,000 subsidy to the MMA from the state taxpayers to keep this spa and sports facility going .. $9 million/900 students = ABOUT $10,000 per student per year. It’s just simple math. It’s an outrage considering 1/2 of the students are from out of state.
Gee I don’t recall seeing a spa or any major sports facilities in all the time I’ve spent at MMA! However, as a Maine native and as a UMO alum, I can tell you that TONS of money has been spent upgrading the facilities at UMO over the years!!!!! And let me think about this…um yeah a Division III school doesn’t give scholarships to their athletes…and you also rarely see a member of MMA’s football team in the news for assault/rape/robbery…unlike UMO!
Spa and sports facility? After that comment, this is the only reply I will even return because it is so obvious you no nothing of which you speak. My sons were/are in the regiment…their day begins at 7 am and they are certainly in no way associated with facilities even remotely likened to a spa. As for their sports? They compete as other Div III schools do with no athletic scholarships….maybe you should get out a map, try and find Castine and visit the school….maybe you can be enlightened….again “con-fusion”, my sons have never received a dime of this alleged $9000.00.
As a naitive Mainer Living in S.C., I hope they enjoy Charleston, a city with a rich sea going history. I also hope they visit the Battery where a piece of the USS. Maine is a centerpiece to the memorial.
Thanks for the info. I will be sure to pass it to my son. He pulled into Charleston last year while working on a Maersk ship and loved it. He is really looking forward to having more time to explore (he only had a day last summer).
Let’s try this again for those that pretend not to understand what should be obvious. The Maine state budget contains a line item for $9 million to subsidize the MMA. I understand why if your sired attend that MMA that you want to defend it here so not have to pay the true cost of its programs .. but other state needs go wanting in order to support this bad business model. Each MMA student is subsidized $9,000 per year and nearly 1/2 of the student body is from out of state. It’s time for the MMA to be privatized .. like Bates, Coby, and Bowdoin.
I pay for all of my tuition via students loans. I get 2 scholarships yearly that amount to less than $1000. My stafford loans account for about $2000 per semester, and my MELA loan is for $16000 for the year. I have not received $9000 ANYTHINGS let alone money that has been given to me. Unless you are a student here and are paying on your loans and know exactly what you owe and don’t owe, I would suggest just being quiet. Because I can assure you, that as an actual MMA student, not a parent or recent grad, there isn’t $9000 laying around for whomever wants to use it.
And ps, MMA is by no means a “spa and sports facility”. Perhaps you’re just angry you didn’t have what it takes to make it here. Or maybe it’s the fact that the people who do make it thru, have careers ahead of them, not just jobs. Should’a tried harder in school, maybe you wouldn’t be so “coolfused”.
You can keep trying to bash MMA but I sure don’t see you making your case. It works the same way for UMO and I don’t see you bashing them. Shoot my son’s girlfriend is a junior at UMO and she’s not even from the USA! I don’t know what your big beef is with MMA but it’s quite evident that you are holding a HUGE grudge!
Oh and if you have such an issue with wasteful spending why don’t you go after all those long term welfare cheats I keep reading about in the BDN?