Two make the cut during Navy diver recruitment
Divers are integral to any missions and operations of the SA Navy like underwater and coastal reconnaissance, search and rescue among others.
POLOKWANE- Only two of the 194 hopefuls who attended a national diving recruitment drive in the city last week, were successful.
The applicants, all between 18 and 26 years old, on Thursday and Friday showed up when recruiters of the South African Navy Divers (SAND) under the national military services, hosted the drive in Polokwane.
Divers are integral to any missions and operations of the SA Navy and their invaluable functions include among others, underwater and coastal reconnaissance, search and rescue, clearance diving, demolitions and salvage operations.
The majority of applicants could not keep up with the pressure of moving swiftly under water in the 300m freestyle in a time of eight minutes.
For the few who moved to the next rounds – they were subjected to a 50m snorkel swim, 50m swim with a diving mask full of water, 25m under-water swim and 50m weight-belt swim, only two remained.
For physical activities, they were required to conduct a 2,4km run in under 13 minutes, do 40 push-ups, 50 sit-ups and seven pull-ups.
Successful candidates are also subjected to human resources recruitment processes and will form part of the 2024 military skills development intake, according to Sub Lt. Ilse Solomons, the public relations officer at SAND.
The recruitment drive started in Gauteng on April 24.
So far, it has been completed in the Free State, Northern Cape, North West and Limpopo.
Next up on their schedule was Mpumalanga (May 15-16), KwaZulu-Natal on May 18-19, the Eastern Cape on May 22-23 and the Western Cape on May 29-30.
