Project Reach: Japan

On September 25, in an event intended to help deepen children's understanding of ships and the sea, 89 fifth-graders from Tamashima-minami Elementary School in Okayama Prefecture viewed the launching ceremony for an oil tanker in Hiroshima Prefecture.
The tour was part of a program undertaken since 2005 by the Cooperative Association of Japan Shipbuilders with support from The Nippon Foundation. The program takes children who live far from from dockyards to see launching ceremonies. This year, foundation interns accompanied the group.

Preparing to leave

The vessel launched was the Sanko Libra 548 (27,000 tons displacement; 182.5 meters in length, 32.2 meters wide, and 18.1 meters deep), a Liberian-registered tanker built by the Onomichi Dockyard. At the mid-afternoon launch, the children appeared overwhelmed by the size of the vessel, staring rapt at the spectacle of the craft sliding from the dry dock into the sea.

Intern getting her paper picture show ready

Preceding the ceremony, the children visited a steel plant, and were very excited by the sight of powerful flows of molten iron being transformed into steel plates.

Later, aboard the buses on the way to the dockyard, the foundation interns put on a paper picture show entitled “Tetchan to Kanko.” It was a story of how Tetchan, a steel plate made from iron ore mined in Australia, became part of a ship in Japan, then returned to Australia to meet Kanko the kangaroo. The story won a round of applause from the children, followed by rapid-fire questions such as “How long does it take to make a ship?”

Walking along the Sanko Libra 548

At the launching ceremony, the children appeared shocked by the size of the ship, asking “Why doesn’t something that heavy just sink into the water?” or “How can they build something so big?” The children demonstrated a keen interest in ships, a sign of the success of the project. Four more visits by different groups are planned for the 2009 fiscal year, and plans call for the program to continue through the 2010 fiscal year.