MAIN HEAD Ship training simulators - where next? DECK HEAD Walk-through simulated engine rooms, connected engine room and bridge simulations, cargo handling simulators - how will tomorrow's simulators train seafarers? BODY Simulators to date have been largely training seafarers in specific tasks, for example steering the ship, running the engine, using a GMDSS system and handling cargo. But simulator companies are now thinking of ways that they could be used to better reflect the multi-tasking nature of being onboard a ship and involve more interaction between bridge and engine. To imagine some possible scenarios: You are required to take out a vessel with an unfamiliar bridge system and a crew that hardly speak English. You have to do 5 hours of paperwork. Your superintendent demands that you do something which, you feel, compromises safety, because he has been asked to do it by the charterer. You are asked to rescue people from a ship in distress, but the nearest port refuses to let you disembark them because they will seek asylum, and you have secret forces soldiers coming onboard the ship putting you under pressure (Tampa). Your ship starts leaking small amounts of oil and listing, you ask for a port of refuge and are refused, you have to deal with government officials onboard your vessel and make a decision whether to flood ballast tanks, stop the ship listing but risk the ship being under so much stress that it breaks (the Prestige). You ask crewmembers to clean a tank containing vapours from a previous flammable cargo, but instead of first filling the tank with inert vapours and then filling it with oxygen, so that the tank is safe to enter, they fill the tank directly with oxygen, so the tank now contains a dangerous mixture of oxygen and flammable vapour (possible scenario for the Bow Mariner accident). You have to navigate in rocky waters with an unstable and badly loaded cargo, and you have to decide whether to move the ballast around the ship to stabilise it (possible Rocknes scenario). A terrorist makes his way onto the bridge of your gas carrier, shoots the captain, puts you, as a 1st officer, in charge of navigating the vessel with a gun to your head, and asks you to drive it into the path of a ferry close to US coastal waters. You have the option of pressing the ship security alert system. Anyone who plays computer games knows that the technology is there to create these scenarios. Imagine them played in a training college, with real people performing the different roles on a ship, maybe with seafarers locked inside for several days and a grinning instructor next door coming up with more problems when people start looking too comfortable (10 feet waves and fog?) SUBHEAD What simulators can do It is important to put simulator training in its proper place; simulators can never train what it is like to have the responsibility involved in handling a real ship, or take equipment apart and fix it. But they can do almost anything else. Training colleges report that seafarers can feel under similar levels of stress when in a simulated crisis as a real one, and stress is a critical factor in the realism since it makes people behave very differently. Simulators can give students an overview of how the whole vessel works, with different cargoes, different tanks, different pumping systems, the engine and the bridge, which they could never get from real life experience. Once the computer has a basic model of the ship, the equipment onboard and the shape of the land, the software can easily be updated to include different training exercises, or include new pieces of equipment. "Computer systems can show you the consequences of doing things wrong," says Petter Lunde, a teacher of nautical science at the Royal Norwegian Naval Academy. "With simulators you can basically do everything. If something goes wrong, it doesn't actually cost anything." "I'm pretty sure that in 5-10 years time we will be modelling the entire ship," he says. "Its going to be there." SUBHEAD Virtual engine room Kongsberg, one of the leading maritime simulator companies, is experimenting with simulator tools which model the entire engine room which the user can walk around. The idea came from a training establishment in Singapore which built up a mock-up physical engine room for training purposes. Students can turn valves, read dials, undo nuts and other tasks ship engineers might be required to do. "You can go down ladders and open compressors," says Harald Kluken, product manager of Kongsberg engine and cargo simulation. The engine room does not necessarily have to be limited to a PC screen; similar to the way full mission simulators project the view out of the window onto a screen, a walk through engine room simulator could project a life-sized engine room onto a large screen, which the student could walk through without actually having to walk. The project is still at the idea stage however because Kongsberg is not confident it can recoup the enormous costs of developing such a tool through sales. "We know the technology is there but we don't know how to market it," says Mr Kluken. "Its expensive to start to develop it." SUBHEAD Cargo handling Kongsberg is keen to build up interest in its cargo handling simulators, where students learn how to load and unload vessels in the most efficient way, minimising the amount of time vessels have to spend in port and minimising the risk of oil spills. The cargo handling simulators can be useful for even experienced officers, who may know exactly which valve to open when, but do not have a clear overview of how the various solids, liquids and gases are flowing around the ship. Also, considering that deep sea tankers can spend 1.5 months doing a round trip, and then seafarers have time off, they are unlikely to do many loading and unloading operations. It is easy to forget how to do things. Shipping companies can also use the simulators to check out their proposed loading and discharge plans to see if they will work. There are no legal requirements for seafarers to be trained in cargo handling, as there are with navigational skills, but Kongsberg hopes that shipping companies will see that they can get financial benefits from having their seafarers trained using these systems. SUBHEAD Developments at Kongsberg Another recent development from Kongsberg is making simulator tools which run over the internet, to learn how to use single pieces of equipment (eg one pump). Other developments are an online diagnostic system for its full mission (ship's bridge sized) training simulators at training schools, and adding sound effects to its simulators so students can hear different engine room noises or the sound a pump makes when it is pumping air (cavitation). Kongsberg is also very keen to make its training packages more attractive, in particular making the engine and cargo room simulators more attractive (the navigation simulators tend to sell themselves). A major priority is updating the instructor station to make it easier to use. The company is developing new software panels for its GMDSS simulator and tools enabling people to practise using AIS. SUBHEAD Doing things at once A problem with simulators developed to date is that they tend to teach users on specific equipment, for example a pump or radar, but not to use many different pieces of equipment at once, as real life seafarers are required to do. "You might be able to operate a radar - but then marry that with applying a collision regulation," says Henry Tremblay, president of Kongsberg Simulation Canada. "It's the ability to do all of these tasks and knitting them together as it would be in the real world." "Its like - learning the clutch - but if you drive, you have to understand traffic lights." "We need to get to the point where being on the course is like being on a ship." Simulators can also help the bridge and engine team learn how to work better together; this might have prevented the Braer accident in 1993, when a ship sank after water got into the fuel lines and there was ineffective communication between engine and deck to report the problem and work out how to resolve it. Mr Tremblay notes that there are differences in the skills deck officers and engineers are required to learn and the courses should reflect this. "In engineering, the ramp of knowledge is the highest," he says. "There are very precise sequences of events people need to learn. You take specific action. With simulators, you can better understand the relationships of the process." "With navigation, who's to say where is the best time to alter course," he says. BOX TEXT Many thanks to Kongsberg Maritime for allowing Digital Ship to attend its user conference in Rotterdam as research for this article. See www.kongsberg.com