Page 34: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 2015)

SIMULATION TRAINING

The New RealityThe New Reality

Investment in Maritime Simulation Surges “Simulation technology has continued said Capt. Ted Morley, Chief Opera- to deliver as real of a feel as a mariner

The proliferation of in- on a more or less steadily upward trajec- tions Of? cer of Maritime Professional can get without actually getting wet.

tory over the last ten years,” said Sam Training. (MPT) “Advances in technol- “From our perspective there has been creasingly sophisticated

Pecota, Director of Simulation, Cali- ogy have sparked tremendous improve- an increase in simulation activity in the and realistic maritime fornia Maritime Academy, “The clarity ment in the quality of simulation and in last months, and in fact a general upward and ? delity of our current full mission what simulation can do. MPT installed trend in demand for some time now,” simulation facilities is simulators is signi? cantly superior to the ? rst privately owned simulation fa- said Neil Bennett, Sales, Transas Amer- that which was possible at the turn of the cility in 2002, in the ensuing years we icas, Inc. “ I think there is an ever widen- taking the market by century. But this improvement is mainly have had an ongoing upgrade system ing acceptance of the value of simulation a matter of degree, not a total revolution. that has allowed our systems to grow as part of maritime training.” storm, with investment

That sort of paradigm shift in simulation and stay at the cutting edge. The biggest Pecota agrees. “Simulation training is globally to train new training may by coming soon however, changes we see now is integration of no longer a luxury in the maritime edu- with the introduction of wearable de- systems, the ability of today’s simulators cation and training business: It is vital and old mariners alike vices like Google Glass and Microsoft to take very complex real-world systems that through carefully controlled and

HoloLens.” and rather than simulate them, today’s effective simulation training maritime to exacting new stan-

Pecota is not alone, as there has been a simulators can generate and feed the students develop ‘bridge-mindedness’ palpable advancement and investment in necessary data to stimulate that equip- to a very high degree well before be- dards.

next-generation simulation technology ment.” ing turned loose to operate multimillion globally. While certainly not the only game in dollar vessels capable of causing cata- “Twenty years ago simulation was an town, Transas has been a driver in deliv- strophic environmental disasters after

By Greg Trauthwein, Editor extremely limited, extremely complex, ering latest simulation technologies, in- simple navigational or collision avoid- and extremely expensive training tool,” tegrated in increasingly complex models ance errors. The same applies to engi-

Maritime Professional Training

A DP Lab at Maritime Professional Training. According to Captain Ted Morley (above right), MPT has invested about $5 mil- lion in expanding its training capacity at MPT’s four campus’.

34 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News • MARCH 2015

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