The Bundeswehr administrative mills grind slowly but effectively. After the deadly incident in which a female 25 y/o sea cadet ("Obermaat OA") fell off the rigging 28 metres onto wooden planks and the adjacent railing at Salvador de Bahia, Brazil in November 2010, the German Naval Academy in Flensburg ("Marineschule Mürwick, MSM") got the training mast for climbing drill exercises, erected at the facility last Tuesday, April 24th.

This 28 m mast is not as tall as the real 45 m one on the SSS Gorch Fock, the training ship for German navy officers to be. Well, it's just a 'monkey tree' and not a mast where the cadets are able to set sail. The alleged reason for this, personal time and efforts weren't deemed appropriate for the desired learning progress. Prime learning target for the naval students shall be getting acquainted with the height.

What safety features are installed? Well, in the case of falling off the mast, the trainees will be falling onto a soft surface, think of these big soft jumping devices at McDonalds for the kids.

In terms of procurement of material and prior research and testing, the 18-month period between the accident at Bahia habor and the mast erection at Flensburg is almost a wink of the eye in comparision to other endeavors of getting necessary navy equipment in the past.

Interesting, the coincidence (?) strikes me, indeed, that the mast has the same height from which the deadly incident occured.