ZIKHONA Gwexa of Umthatha, Eastern Cape, is over the moon after being accepted into a new maritime cadet programme

The South African Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) launched a cadet training programme this week with the Maritime Training Academy in partnership with the private sector.

Gwexa, 22, could not find a job after graduating in maritime studies at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

She was just one of 200 South African students who graduate in maritime studies every year.

But now she is part of the first group of 140 students to benefit from the programme.

Speaking at the launch at Cape Town's Waterfront, Samsa CEO Tsietsi Mokhele said students would be trained in pre-sea safety courses before joining ships to train as deck or engineer cadets.

Mokhele said the problem for graduates was that South Africa sold its fleet in 1993.

"We don't own ships as a country. We sold our fleet. Kids coming from universities have nowhere to go except these cadet programmes."

Mokhele said Samsa had set up the "Sisters of the Sea Network" of experienced women to mentor the newcomers.

This was started after Akhona Geveza, a young South African woman on a ship with the Transnet National Ports Authority's Maritime Studies Programme, was found dead in the sea last year on the Safmarine Kariba off Croatia.

Hours before she died, Geveza had laid charges of rape against a senior officer.

An investigation into her death is continuing.