Naval engineering students take a tour of supplier companies in the aquaculture industry

The series of visits began at Walbusch, where both students and academics were able to observe the development of cage rafts and mooring systems of farming centers.

Last week, a group of fourth-year students from the Naval Engineering degree at the Austral University of Chile (UACh) traveled from Valdivia (Los Ríos region) to the city of Puerto Montt (Los Lagos region), in order to visit different companies in the aquaculture sector.

The 24 students, accompanied by two academics from UACh, visited the facilities of Walbusch, Sitecna and AEX Group, three companies that lead innovation in technology applied to the development and design of floating devices for the aquaculture industry.

The tour took place on Monday 21 November within the framework of the course "Fundamentals of Ocean Engineering", which is part of the renewal of the curriculum for the Naval Engineering degree at UACh.

"Generally, we focused only on naval architecture training, that is, ships; however, seeing the new needs of the industry regarding aquaculture and other areas, we are expanding to other platforms," emphasized Cristian Cifuentes, one of the teachers from UACh in charge of the activity.

The series of visits began at Walbusch, where both students and academics were able to observe the development of cage rafts and mooring systems of cultivation centers. Later, the group moved to the company Sitecna, in the Chinquihue area, where they observed the new pontoons that are being built.

Finally, they reached AEX Group, in whose offices and workshops it was possible to learn about the work of this company in the development of measurement and monitoring systems in mooring lines, for example.

"They received us very well, in a very welcoming way, since the companies feel that we are giving this industry the importance it deserves, being the first time we have made these visits to these companies. Usually, we go to shipyards, but this time we focused 100% on the aquaculture issue," added Cifuentes, who stressed that most of the graduates end up working, in one way or another, in aquaculture companies or with base in the south-south of Chile.