MARITIME New model ship helps save lives Warsash Maritime Academy welcomed a new purpose-built scaled ship model to its Ship Handling Centre in May – increasing its fleet to eight.
A new HORIZON for maritime safety Researchers at Southampton Solent University have been awarded $1.5 million by the TK Foundation in Nassau, Bahamas, to lead an international research project into seafarer fatigue.
Resolution, the latest addition to the Solent fleet
The academy, part of Southampton Solent University, is a worldleading training centre for seafaring ships’ officers, pilots and masters. The scaled models handle in the same way as a real ship, giving officers the opportunity to see how to handle a large vessel safely, particularly in restricted waters. The new ship model, named Resolution, is the first 1:25 scale model of a container ship to join the existing fleet at the centre. Modelled on a real 13,300 TEU container ship that is 365 metres long, the scaled vessel replicates the most widely used container ship size trading globally by major shipping companies. Industry leaders, dignitaries and university staff were present at the launch, presided over by the university’s chancellor, Admiral The Right Honourable Lord West of Spithead, at the Ship Handling Centre in Timsbury. “This valuable addition to the fleet demonstrates the sustained level of investment from the university in its facilities at the academy,” said Andrew Hair, director of Warsash Maritime Academy. “As well as benefitting the shipping industry economically and environmentally, this type of training has the potential to save lives.”
In the current economic climate, ships’ crews are under increasing pressure from competitive voyage schedules – and there are rising concerns over incidents and accidents that are increasingly attributed to fatigue. Building on its predecessor HORIZON, a €3.4 million European Commission-funded study into fatigue at sea, the MARTHA project will continue this research and pilot some of the recommendations made by experts at Solent University’s Warsash Maritime Academy and the Stress Research Institute at Stockholm University. One of the outcomes of Project HORIZON, which saw Solent’s head of maritime research, Professor Mike Barnett, honoured with the Merchant Navy Medal for Services to marine safety, has been the production of a prototype fatigue prediction model created specifically for use in shipping operations. Based on a theoretical model produced from research within other industries, it predicts the levels of fatigue among watchkeepers. One of the aims of the latest project is to put this into practice and test it at sea.
Bringing the real world into maritime training Warsash Maritime Academy achieved a global first in October 2012, with the launch of its brand new full-mission engine room simulator. The first of its kind in the world, the specially designed simulator features cutting-edge facilities that mimic real shipboard environments, helping to train the mariners of the future in safety, emergency and crisis management skills. Integrating simulator technology with real vessel control and electrical systems, the new facility brings realism into this highly specialist training area. The simulator suite consists of an engine control room, an emergency switchboard room, a high voltage room and a photorealistic engine room, as well as an instructor station. Serving engineering officers, marine surveyors, technical
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superintendents, electro-technical officers and Merchant Navy officer cadets use the simulator to learn how to handle the most challenging conditions and situations in different types of vessels, including a very large crude carrier, a fast roll-on roll-off ferry and a cruise ship. The simulator tests the operator for communication, cooperation, situational awareness, decision-making and leadership skills, and accurately recreates the time delays and issues that would occur as officers move from the control room to locations elsewhere within the engine room – bringing an essential real-world feel to their training.