South Devon Marine Academy is now the new home for Princess Yachts’ training facility on the banks of the River Dart. With Princess Yachts also doubling their intake of apprentices, there will be a lot more opportunity for students to be working with the high-end yacht building company.

Princess Yachts is one of the biggest employers in the South of England. South Devon College will be supporting the business by providing a dedicated workshop for Princess Yachts apprentices to undertake specialist project activities, in addition to the new training suite available in the Hi Tech & Digital Centre and the wide array of existing facilities across the South Devon College campuses. Apprentices will receive a truly immersive experience of all operations over the four-year traineeship, with the workshop authentically replicating the assembly line, right down to the scheduled ‘buzzer’ break times.

Princess Yachts’ team of first-class apprentices will be given the full experience of what is to come from working for one of the world’s finest yacht builders, with every detail of the assembly line replicated in the Princess-branded workshop at South Devon College with practical and on the water training delivered from South Devon Marine Academy at Noss on Dart Marina.

Both South Devon College and Princess Yachts are confident that the Marine Academy offers an ideal environment in which to train Princess’ future workforce. The South Devon Marine Academy operates from Premier Marina’s working boatyard and marina with a fleet of yachts, powerboats and RIBs on which to work and train. The 90 square metre Princess facility will house a mockup hull for real life skills training and allows apprentices to practice their areas of specialism in relation to their individual apprenticeship.

This facility very recently had the Princess Yachts V40 hull delivered to complete this facility which will support the practical development in a range of programmes at all levels of study available at the College.

Through on-and off-water activities, trainees will be immersed in their chosen area of expertise but will also receive full exposure to each of the other roles involved in the building of luxury yachts, including the game changing X95 ‘superfly’ coming later this year. The College week will be structured to follow Princess Yachts’ working hours to provide a realistic work experience, with South Devon College providing a coach to pick up apprentices from Princess Yachts’ Coypool base at 7am, returning to the site at 5pm.

In addition to their apprenticeship qualifications, each apprentice will receive the Open Awards Exploring Maritime Skills qualification, as well as a range of additional transferable skills; lean manufacturing, problem solving, creative thinking, effective communications, leadership and aftersales.

Ensuring they get the finest, most rounded education in the world of maritime construction, South Devon College will provide a host of other qualifications that will surround this to increase their future prospects. These qualifications include the Royal Yachting Association (RYA) Survival, RYA VHR Radio Operators License and RYA First Aid.

South Devon College are honoured to be working with Princess Yachts and growing the apprenticeships programme offering even more, providing more opportunity for people to work and learn in the marine industry.

To find out more about studying a course in the Marine sector, come along to the next Open Evening on 20th November 2019 at South Devon College, Long Road, Paignton, TQ4 7EJ. You can look at what courses are available at southdevon.ac.uk and you can also get in touch with our Helpzone team at [email protected] or call them on 08000 380 123.