BRITAIN likes to think itself a maritime nation. Yet a survey carried out last month by the charity Seafarers UK revealed huge gaps in knowledge of merchant ships and the seafarer.
Barely one per cent of the population knows that more than 90 per cent of our trade comes and goes by sea and more than 30 per cent don’t know that the Merchant Navy transports cargo and goods to and from the UK.
More than four per cent don’t know what a working port is and one in five thought Calais was a British port.
Nautilus International have since made a presentation to the Parliamentary group on maritime issues to safeguard the country’s shipping industries and seafarers skill base.
Hopefully to make them “sea sense”.
Kevin Paylor, Brailsford Crescent, Clifton, York.
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