Korea Maritime & Ocean University’s Training ship the Hanbada Successfully Concludes a Friendly Exchange Event with University of the Philippines Visayas in Cebu, Philippines

The Korea Maritime & Ocean University (KMOU, President Ryu Dong-geun) announced that its training ship Hanbada (Captain Lee Yoon-seok), which is sailing offshore in the second semester of the 2024 academic year, visited the University of the Philippine Visayas on the 17th and successfully completed an exchange event.

The ocean training voyages, which are organized by the Maritime Education Institute (Director Lee Wonju), promote the establishment and enhancement of cooperative relationships through mutual exchanges, such as training facility tours and education programs, at ports and through visits with related universities and organizations. The University of the Philippines Visayas, which was founded in 1919 as the Visayas Institute, holds a prominent role in maritime education in Cebu, Philippines, as it fosters ship officers, and offers marine logistics and maritime engineering training.

On the 17th, a total of 127 KMOU trainees visited the University of the Philippines Visayas, where students from both universities exchanged views on the exchange program and the overall aspects of maritime education. The following day, the 18th, students from the University of the Philippines Visayas visited and boarded the training ship the Hanbada to directly and indirectly experience the advanced maritime education system in Korea.

In addition, as part of the project to develop national universities, mentoring and expert lectures from alumni entrepreneurs active in various industries in the Philippines strengthened practical connections between overseas alumni and current students, while also offering a range of activities, including VLOG production, to enhance international awareness.

Captain Lee Yoon-seok of the Hanbada stated, “Our visit to the University of the Philippine Visayas in Cebu created an excellent platform for cultural exchange and provided a valuable opportunity to showcase our university’s outstanding maritime education system, further solidifying our status as a leading global maritime institution. In the future, we plan to sequentially visit the Philippine Merchant Marine Academy (PMMA) and Kobe University’s Faculty of Maritime Sciences to strengthen ties with other distinguished global maritime universities and establish connections for maritime officer training programs, as well as mutual recognition of training periods.”

The KMOU’s Hanbada was built in 2005 with only Korean technology and is a training ship with an overall length of 117.2 meters, a gross tonnage of 6,686 tons (t), and a maximum speed of 19 knots. Through the ocean voyage training, which sails around the world, and the coastal voyage training along domestic waters, the Hanbada is used to help maritime students at the KMOU acquire practical skills on board. Another training ship is the Hanara, which has a gross tonnage of 9,196 tons. The 2024 ocean voyage of the second semester will take place from October 11 to November 7 for a total of 27 days. The Hanbada’s next visits will be to Keelung (Taiwan) and Kobe (Japan).