Whitehaven Sea Cadets - TS BEE

A group of 14 cadets and four staff recently spent a night at Manchester's Salford SCC before joining our affiliated ship, HMS RAMSEY (at 6am!) for a day at sea. After being welcomed on board by the Commanding Officer, Lt Cdr Martin Mackey RN the cadets were introduced to the ship’s staff and given a very quick tour before the ship left port.

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On 30th November 2005 the CO of HMS Ramsey, Lt Cdr Martin Mackey, accompanied by Ollie Noakes (Navigation Officer), Gary Morris (Weapons Engineer Officer) and Mike Taylor (Clearance Diver) made the trip 'up north' from what was then their home port of Portsmouth to visit us. We were especially pleased to receive them as it had been about five years since the last visit from our affiliated ship.

During an all too short visit, Martin Mackey toured the unit, took time to speak to several of our cadets and watched a rigging display. Lt Cdr Mackey and his staff then gave the cadets a short presentation about HMS Ramsey and her role in the Navy, commenting that the rigging display that they had just seen was not simply an exercise but a practical means of transferring equipment between ships that was regularly used.

Asked about the visit, Lt Cdr Mackey said that he was keen to maintain links with both TS Bee and the other organisations with which his ship was affiliated. "We had several of TS Bee's staff visit us during the Fleet Review, part of the Trafalgar 200 celebrations in November, and it developed from there. The ship's moving up to Faslane in January and that's only a few hours away; hopefully we can strengthen the links we have and have a few of the cadets visit us when we are alongside."

Before leaving at the end of the evening our CO, Keith Crowe presented Lt Cdr Mackey with a framed photograph of the unit taken during the storm which swept Cumbria back in January. Proving that 'great minds think alike', Martin Mackey then presented Keith with a photograph of HMS Ramsey.