"For nearly two hundred years, piracy was believed to be a thing of the past. In that time international trade has flourish with nations being able to transport goods, across the worlds oceans virtually unchallenged.

Ninety percent of world trade travels by sea. Our food, our fuel, our clothes, our cars, our electronic, virtually everything we need or use comes to us by ship. International piracy has meant that certain ship's insurance premiums have gone up ten fold. That means the cargo that they carry have gone up in price too. You may have the romantic image of a pirate like that of Jack Sparrow, but in reality they murder, kidnap and maim"

Ross Kemp, 2009

Warsash, on first looks it is like any other village, one that lies between Southampton and Portsmouth. Lying on the eastern side of the mouth of the river Hamble, right at the heart of the UK's sailing capital with easy access to the Solent. The river lined with mansions and private berths for the hundreds and hundreds of yachts. It was safe to surmise that this is a wealthy area in the county of Hampshire.

But what else made this place special was the fact it is the home to one of the oldest nautical colleges in the UK which itself steeped in history. Most notably being the place where the majority of the landing crafts of D-Day sailed from for the beaches of Normandy. Established as the Southampton School Of Navigation, now known as Warsash Maritime Academy.

During its history buildings were slowly added to the campus with the original few buildings built at the start of the 20th century that now house the administration department and senior officer accommodation right up to the library built at the turn of the 21st century and everything in-between. Another striking feature to the campus is the fact it is essentially split in two halves. One half being on the higher ground where the accommodation, admin and classrooms were located. While the lower half being right by the river bank was primarily made up of practical learning areas such as the fire fighting school, engineering block and seamanship training room and lifeboat pier.

Also in the lower half was a prefab building full of classrooms named after the very first female cadet to attend the college. The door to the ground room main room had a sign on display.

"Do Not Disturb: Exam In Progress"

The twenty odd cadets that made up Michaels class were hard at work, some seated while others including Michael were standing behind their desks. The whiteboard at the front showed it was a chartwork exam and they had two hours to answer the seven questions in their paper.

By now Michael was on question three and was looking at the chart on the table. Though the paper was thinner than regular chart paper. Magenta letters in the corner in big capitals: NOT TO BE USED FOR NAVIGATION with a note on the yellow coloured land stating that items had either been added moved or removed for training purposes.

The question itself was easy to understand. It starts with a set of coordinates and asks the candidate to correctly find the right course to steer and speed to make to get to a position defined by being a certain bearing and distance from a known point.

So Michael got down to it. First he had to mark the start position, like others in his class he broke away from the traditional British method of using parallel rules and instead used a set of navigation protractor triangles. Marking off the latitude and longitude on the side of the chart he transferred the lines towards where they intersect each other and over the cross he marked it with a circle denoting that it as a fix plus he wrote down a time next to it. Then using a compass and pencil he drew an arc of the given distance from the known point and again with the triangles drew a bearing from it. Where it crossed the arch he marked that point with a small triangle showing it as an estimated position.

Drawing a line from one to the other now he had the course he had to achieve to get to where he needed to be. However he wasn't done yet. He had to take into account the tide. So back to the plain piece of paper he took the tidal data on the chart and with interpolation worked out how strong the tide was going and which direction. Again he had to interpolate so he knew exactly how far he would be set off for the amount of time it would take to get to the destination. Then after that he drew on the chart another line from the start position, the tidal vector. Then from the end of that line to the destination he know had the course he would have to steer.

Just one more bit to go, the speed required. Using dividers he measured the length of the third line he drew and again interpolating he was able to deduce the speed needed to get the final position at the correct time. After he was finished he drew a neat box on his answer sheet and put in his course to steer and speed required. Plus a habit that his class started was to put their answer on a scrap piece of paper to keep so he could remember his answer. He rechecked his work and seemed happy with it.

Time past on and slowly some packed up their belongings, leaving their charts and answer sheets on the desk and quietly walking out. Some were busy working while the rest did what Michael were doing, sitting and waiting. He was finished, all done and ready to leave at any time. But he stayed where he was. Advice was given before that if you finish early, it's worth staying for whole exam because you might suddenly realize you made a mistake. So Michael was doing just that, constantly and meticulously going over everything, but nothing struck him as being off and he seemed happy about. The clock on the wall ticked on.

"And that's your time up" the exam invigilator announced "put your equipment down, make sure your student number is on both your answer sheet and chart and remain silent till they are all collected"

As the papers were collected people were sharing glances at each other, gauging their reaction. Some seemed pleased while other looked like they knew they messed it up. Michael was of the former.

A few minutes later and they were all outside discussing.

"What you course did you get in three Michael?" Asked a fellow classmate.

"Zero-three-one" Michael answered checking his piece of paper. Other started saying the same thing, a degree more or less.

"Well I got Seventeen knots for that"

"Seventeen and a half"

"Damn" Michael said "I got fifteen knots"

"Oh well, you only binned a few marks. No big deal"

"Yeah but I but I wasn't to sure on the talkie talkie question at the end. I'm sure I got the academic requirement, but the MCA requirement? Well I'm not too hopeful on that"

As the class talked amongst themselves, both Michael's and Warren's phones pinged at the same time.

"You got a text from the CLO?" Michael asked as he checked his phone.

"Lucky guess" Warren replied.

The text which had been sent from the cadet liaison officer had asked them to meet him at his office at the upper half of the campus. They trotted up the hill and over the building furthest over towards the coast with a prime view of Southampton water.

The CLO greeted them in and asked them to take a seat. Already in the office were two other cadets Michael knew to be engineer cadets and another young man in his early twenties wearing glasses. He had the physic the same as that of a long distance runner, and dress very casually. Not a cadet then.

"I would like to introduce you all to Miles Kneeshaw. He's a media studies student from the East Park Terrace campus" The CLO said "And Miles, these are the four cadets who you'll be working with. Two deck cadets Michael Rickers and Warren Stitfall and two engine cadets Billy Rutter and Damon Ronson"

Miles shook hands with the four exchanging pleasantries.

"Well Miles here is putting together a project piece for his final assessment which is to make a promotional film. So the university approached Seawave Maritime Agencies and they agreed that he would do one for them regarding their cadet sponsorship program. So what does this mean to you? Well your company wants to promote its cadet sponsorship program so what better way than to promote training than by having a film of their own students being done by another student"

"I'm sorry sir, but I still don't follow how does this involve us?" Billy asked.

"Simple, the film will revolve around you four, do a few interviews about yourselves, where your from how'd you get here and where you hope to be in the future that sort of stuff. Then he'll join with you on the ship and film you as you go through your onboard training"

"Wait, so we're going to be on the same ship then?" Warren asked excitedly.

"That's right, it's all been arranged. You'll be joining the Patagonian Star"

The four cadets looked at each other with excitement, they knew that ship was the flagship for the container fleet in the company, nearly brand new and had all the mod cons.

"So these interviews, when do we start them?" Michael asked.

"Well I don't get the equipment till next week and as I understand you're all in the middle of doing your exams. So it would be best till you've finished them or when you want to that is" Miles answered.

The cadets agreed to the idea and they talked a bit more on the finer details of what so to be expected. Him telling them what he hoped to achieve and they talked a little about what being at sea. Soon both parties got to know each other just a little better then half an hour later they all shook hands again the cadets left.

"So come on Mike, what do you really think about it then?" Warren asked as the two of them walked down the road heading from the collage to the centre of Warsash village.

"Well I don't have a problem with it if that's what your wondering"

"Don't you think it might be a bit of a distraction?"

"Look, it's going to be a four, five month tour. That's a lot of time to get things signed off. Besides even if we didn't have this chap onboard filming, there are still lots of distractions. I'm pretty sure he'll want us doing various tasks for the film so if anything we'll probably get more done this way. So no I don't have a problem with it. Do you?" Michael said sternly.

"Hey I'm just asking"

"Well I'm just answering. Hey, it might even be fun. I'll catch you later"

Michael made a stop at the local Co-Op to pick up a few things to stock up the kitchen. As he was looking for the aisle that had the biscuits he just happened to glance out of the windows and saw a pink Honda S2000 drive past heading out of the village centre in the direction of his place. He sighed to himself. He knew she would come to visit every now and then to check up on things, but she'd always call ahead to avoid any difficulties. If she was turning up unannounced, then it wasn't a social call.

He carried his shopping bag in one hand while his messenger bag and chart tube slung over his other shoulder as he walked away from the village centre down the road. The weather was pleasant, a warm summer day and the sun still shone brightly from the blue sky and a slight breeze helped it stay comfortably warm and not too hot.

As he arrived at his place he saw that sure enough Elita was there parked outside.

"Let me drop my stuff off first, got things for the fridge here" He said as he walked past and towards the path that led towards the communal door to a small block of flats. Fumbling for his keys he got the door open then climbed the stairs to the first floor and to his flat, soon he was in and putting the things away. He much preferred it to his old place where he once shared a house. Here he had the place to himself where he study in piece and quiet and also he could keep on top of tidying the place without having to deal with others mess. Minute later he rejoined Elita back the street.

She opened her passenger side door, inviting him in.

"Hows your exams going?" She asked.

"Ok I suppose. Just had my chartwork exam, I think I might have passed it"

"Think or know you've passed it?"

"Yeah that's a good question. I know I binned a few marks, just don't know if I binned too many. So what do I owe this pleasure then?"

"I know your busy revising for your exams and the last thing I would want to do is to distract you. But I can't avoid it"

"Come on, lets get to it, what's happened?"

"It's Arcee and Jack, they went out on a regular patrol but haven't reported back for sometime now. It's probably nothing, but the rest of the team are out on other assignments. Could do with some backup but I don't want to unnecessarily pull the rest of the team from their missions"

Michael nodded and without hesitation said "Alright, lets go then"