Internships: Hands-on experience and a fresh perspective

Southampton-based superyacht engineering firm Lateral Naval Architects had taken summer placement interns for many years. Ten years ago, it changed the strategy and now offers two 12-month internships a year. We hear from two interns and get the view of its chief naval architect about the positive benefits of the programme.

James Baines, an MEng ship science student at the University of Southampton, has done a one-year internship

What has been your greatest challenge on the internship?

Familiarising myself with new software (or improving my existing skills). My naval architecture degree prepared me well in terms of engineering theory, but the software skills taught, particularly in 2D and 3D draughting, were not up to industry standards, so I had a lot to learn.

What was the most satisfying project?

The highlight of the year was being able to support a weight survey for an inbuild 80m motor yacht, which included preparing the survey documents, carrying out the survey itself, and post-processing to determine any weight changes from the expected values. It was an amazing opportunity to gain some practical experience, look around a ship still fitting out and physically see the results of the company’s work. 

What was the most surprising aspect?

The opportunities available, such as being able to work on a huge range of projects from CFD to AIS research to a study on using machine learning to predict scantlings. I also visited MARIN and Oceanco, which