Nautical companionship
A nautical comradeship (NK !, also: Nautical connection (NV!) Or Nautischer Bund (NB!)) Is a specific form of student associations at seafaring schools and universities of applied sciences that offer nautical training courses. They bring together students of these courses for naval officers and navigators with a master's license.
Nautical comradeships are some of the few student associations that still exist today with a professional orientation, as it used to exist in large numbers for engineers and mining engineers , pharmacists , veterinarians, and agricultural and forestry scientists . In the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, their special (technical) universities were mostly connected to universities with a broader range of training courses, so that the technical orientation of most of the connections today is only of historical character ( see: Student Forestry Association (Forest Science), Naumburger Senioren-Convent (agricultural science), Rudolstadt Senioren-Convent (veterinary medicine)).
The professional orientation of the nautical comradeships is evident in the merging of student customs with nautical traditions. There are also some organizational differences to most other student associations. For example, nautical comradeships usually have the status of a registered association (eV) and are also based at seafaring schools, where officers' patents can be obtained , but no academic degrees .
There are nautical comradeships in Germany at the training centers in Bremen , Elsfleth , Leer and Warnemünde as well as at the former training centers in Bremerhaven and Hamburg . They are united in the Convent of Nautical Comradeships (CNK).