- Princess Cruises offers training to sailors using Centre for Simulator Maritime Training Academy.
- It has four full-size ship’s bridge simulators with a 220-degree horizontal field of view.
- Cruise ship consoles have been set up in front of a 53ft (16m) diameter round screen to create an immersive experience.
- There are replicas of the steering wheels, monitors and panels of buttons you would find on a real cruise ship – the screens shift into various real-life situations.
According to an article published in INews, ocean liners are getting bigger and more complex.
What does it take to captain one?
How does a cruise ship captain learn to manoeuvre a vessel that is longer than the Shard building in London and taller than 15 double-decker buses?
How do they know what to do in the event of a fire, passenger overboard, tropical storm or even a whale in the ship’s path?
Not by setting sail, waiting for it to happen and figuring it out as they go, with 3,600 passengers on board.
Although all such events are unlikely, all the bridge (or deck) officers who work for Carnival, one of two corporations that own the bulk of the global cruise industry – including Princess, P&O and Cunard – have to spend five days every year training on an industrial estate on reclaimed land in Almere, near Amsterdam.
Centre for Simulator Maritime Training Academy
Here you will find the Centre for Simulator Maritime Training Academy, known as Csmart, a training school for Carnival’s sailors. The multi-storey building is home to four full-size ship’s bridge simulators with a 220-degree horizontal field of view.
Cruise ship consoles have been set up in front of a 53ft (16m) diameter round screen to create an immersive experience. It is so realistic that some sailors have been known to get seasick at the virtual helm.
Cruises’ fleet, has flown in from Penzance in Cornwall to demonstrate how to use the controls. More than 60 ports, from New York to Portsmouth, can be uploaded on to the floor-to-wall screens.
As the sailors operate the controls – replicas of the steering wheels, monitors and panels of buttons you would find on a real cruise ship – the screens shift into various real-life situations.
These can range from storms with rolling waves and torrential rain that really make it feel as if the floor is pitching back and forth, to options for sudden sandbanks or moving out of the way of approaching ships.
But they can’t prepare for everything…
Instructors are also able to simulate sudden squalls – violent gusts of wind are thought to have caused two Carnival cruise ships to collide in the port of Mexico’s Caribbean island of Cozumel in December, damaging a 952ft (290m) vessel and leaving passengers stunned by the impact.
Carnival’s CEO, Arnold Donald, says that collision probably happened due to a “sudden squall… of wind that pushed the ships”.
It is not the first time such an incident has happened while ships have been in dock. The same month, the new MSC Grandiosa hit a dock in Palermo and last June, the MSC Opera collided with a tourist boat and dock wall in Venice. With so many potential hazards, it’s little wonder that it takes around a decade of training and hands-on experience to reach the rank of ship’s captain.
Full range of potential marine disasters
Back on board the simulator, the Csmart trainers are keen to show off the full range of potential marine disasters, but the company representative with me is less enthusiastic. “How about somewhere sunny?” he pleads.
As Captain Nash “steers” the ship sideways into port in Southampton at a leisurely 2.66 knots (the equivalent of around 3mph), he explains how, since opening five years ago, Csmart has changed the way officers train.
“They used to dump new kit on ships like it was a new toy,” he says. “People didn’t understand the equipment. Now there’s lots of training.”
Virtual engine room
It is not just bridge sailors who train at the college. Beneath the virtual bridge is a virtual engine room – which can produce up to 180 decibels of sound (150 decibels is enough to burst your eardrums). On a cruise ship such as Carnival’s Enchanted Princess – which will be officially named in Southampton in June before her inaugural season in the Mediterranean – there will be 10 qualified deck officers and up to 40 marine engineers.
While on a ship engineers work in a windowless engine room for six hours before they get a 12-hour break – and the Csmart simulator gives a sense of just how hot and noisy an environment that can be. The 8,800 men and women who train here every year also practise scenarios such as a simultaneous fire or flood in the bridge and engine room. “You would expect a small fire every six months,” says Captain Nash. “It’s a hot space with lots of oil.”
Captain Nash, who has held the rank since 2002, says ships and their controls are becoming increasingly automated, with ever smaller margins for human error: “We’re now monitoring instead of driving. The ships’ equipment can see much better than we can.” When he learnt to sail a ship more than 40 years ago, it was with a “bit of wood on a table. Now you can see the whole port coming towards you.“
How to book?
Princess Cruises is offering a seven-day Mediterranean voyage on Enchanted Princess, sailing from Barcelona to Rome. Departing 26 September, ports of call include Gibraltar, Marseille, Genoa and Pisa. Prices start at £949pp including flights and transfers up to the value of £350pp.
Did you subscribe to our daily newsletter?
It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe!
Source: INEWS
