Dalian Maritime University in northeast China's Liaoning Province opened its training vessel Yu Kun to primary and secondary school students in Dalian City on Monday, the National Maritime Day.
Yu Kun is China's first self-developed and designed training ship that is also the world's most advanced for navigation education. It has been to more than 30 countries and regions since it was commissioned in 2008.
Sailors onboard the vessel helped the students learn about sailing devices including compass, marine chart and sextant, and told them seamanship techniques such as how to knot, identify survival signals, wear life jackets, and use lifeboats.
A special demonstration area was set up on the vessel to introduce several marine science and technology projects independently developed by China. One of them is a deep-sea sample-collecting robot that can automatically grab and sort out underwater targets. This project breaks the foreign monopoly of key technologies for underwater intelligent equipment and solves the technical bottleneck problems in various key fields.
Biological specimens collected from the Mariana Trench in the western Pacific Ocean, the deepest known point in the Earth's seabed, were displayed to the students. Some are previously unknown creatures and geological samplings dating back to 100-120 million years ago.
Sailing along with the training vessel is China's first hydrogen fuel cell-powered ship, which echoes the theme of this year's National Maritime Day -- developing a green, low-carbon and smart maritime shipping industry.
July 11 was set as China's National Maritime Day in 2005 to mark the 600th anniversary of the ocean voyages of Zheng He, a great Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) navigator who is recognized as the country's pioneer in navigation.
To celebrate this year's National Maritime Day, a week-long series of activities have been arranged, with the main venue located in the sea port city of Dalian, and with the sub-venues distributed across the country.
Source: CCTV
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