Sixty years from the establishment of Shipbuilding as a major were celebrated on 11 October 2019 at Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy. The formal ceremony was attended by representatives of the first class to graduate from the Shipbuilding programme (1959 – 1964), the Deputy for Education and Science – Captain (N) Prof. Kalin Kalinov, the Dean of the Engineering Faculty – Captain (N) Assoc. Prof. Hristo Hristov, and lecturers. Also in attendance were relatives of Lieutenant Commander Nedelcho Velikov – the curriculum designer for the first graduate shipbuilders. The ceremony was opened by the Deputy of the Academy, who delivered a presentation on the 60th anniversary of the Shipbuilding programme. Shipbuilding was launched as a major in 1959 by a decree by the Council of Ministers in view of the needs of the rapidly developing national shipbuilding industry in order to supply competent engineering personnel for it. The duration of training was 4 years and 9 months. The graduates were conferred the qualification of Shipbuilder Engineer for the needs of the merchant and naval shipbuilding and ship repairs.