Registered Charity Number: 306084,[1] Cadets follow similar rates and ranks, traditions, values and ethos as the British Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) and the Merchant Navy.

Frank Froëst-Carr, the son of a Scotland Yard police inspector, joined the Royal Navy as a 15-year-old boy entrant in the closing years of sail.

In 1975, he published "Spun Yarn & Bell Bottoms",[2] a story of life on the lower deck in an old square-rigged training ship in the early years of the last century, and on a steam cruiser up to the end of World War I.

The NTC’s first ‘unit’ was Training Ship Nautilus in Brighton, based at the old Richmond Road School.

On the 20th January 1945 the first inspection of the Nautical Training Corps, occurred at TS Nautilus NTC on behalf of the Admiral Commanding Reserves, Royal Navy.