HMS CAVALIER

I am sure that you will all be pleased to hear that West Kent District has now started to use HMS Cavalier's accommodation for overnight stays onboard.
WKD have had a close affiliation with HMS Cavalier which is part of the Chatham Historic Dockyard, since 2003 when Sheppey and Medway Towns units first used the ship for onboard Communications and Seamanship training weekends, this evolved into a larger scale District Training weekends, with classes in Seamanship, Communications, Navigation, First Aid, Piping, etc being taught onboard, but up until this year Cadets have attended on a day running basis only, but now up to 35 cadets and 5 staff can remain onboard overnight.

The very first Cadets to use the accommodation onboard were the cadets of the Continuity Drill display team, from Gravesend, Dartford and Faversham Units, under the Command of S/Lt James Grooves and CPO Jim Manning.
Jim and I act as the link between the CHDY / Cavalier's staff who have given us 100% support with the use of the ship and dockyard over the last few years and the CHDY Ships Keeper, Mr Chris Jones, has provided us with an excellent now have a number of training weekends booked with CHDY, in return we provide the Ship and facility and service, WKD Dockyard with a uniform presents with as much of our Training being in the public eye.