On the 10th August 2025 NESC Safety Engineer, Alex Rowe, completed his Royal Naval Reserve Officer training at Britannia Royal Naval College (BRNC) Dartmouth. We are extremely impressed with Alex’s dedication and perseverance during this arduous process, and we are excited to see him and his RNR career develop over the coming years with continued support from NESC.
In Alex’s words –
‘I went to Britannia Royal Naval College from 26th July – 10th August to complete the RNR Confirmation Course, a 2 week assessment to determine if I had what it takes to become an officer in the royal navy reserves.
It started off lightly, driving the college motor whaler boats up and down the river Dart, before ramping up the intensity, to period zero (physical exercise with a royal marine trainer at 0500), marching from one side of the college to the other whilst changing uniform in between and needing to arrive 5 minutes early, copious amounts of ironing, to the Practical Leadership Tasks (PLT) circuit.
During the PLT circuit, we had two days of coached scenarios aided by the divisional staff, then two days of recuperation. After which, we spent three days sleeping in bivi’s and did three assessed PLTs each during the day, then during the night, we went through what is called wet and dry routine, where we got into a pool of water to make our field uniform wet, and then straight into our night routine, which for some, meant sentry duty.
Luckily throughout the entire time, the weather was very kind to us; nothing but sun. This made camping out in bivi’s and sentry duty a lot more bearable, and our wet uniform dried out quite quickly.
Our days always had a packed schedule, which did make the days go by quite quickly. But by day 14, all of our assessments were done, and the anticipation of getting our results began. I was told that I passed all of my PLTs, on holistic’s and fitness, and that I would be passing out as a Midshipman.
The remaining time we had was spent preparing for our pass out parade, which not only did my unit CO attend, but the Commander of the Maritime Reserves attended as our VIP guest and was the person who inspected us during the parade.
It was quite a tough experience, myself and my squad mates all struggled throughout the course and unfortunately not everybody made it through, but we managed to overcome all of the worries and hurdles, and in the end, 17 of us passed out as commissioned officers.’
