LOOP Awards Training Contract To Marine- Safety International

MarineSafety International of New York, a wholly owned subsidiary of FlightSafety International, has announced it has signed a multiyear contract with LOOP Inc. to provide operational and safety training for mooring masters and vessel traffic controllers.

The LOOP (Louisiana Offshore Oil Port) is a supertanker port being completed 19 miles off the Louisiana Gulf Coast. The first U.S. deepwater port, in a water depth of 110 feet, will eliminate the need for s u p e r t a n k e r s to transfer their cargoes to smaller ships in the Caribbean for more expensive delivery to the United States. It will cut down the time to unload a supertanker from seven or 10 days to approximately 32 to 48 hours.

Mooring masters and their assistants provided by LOOP Inc.

will be taken aboard each arriving supertanker to pilot the ship to one of three single-point moorings and stay with the ship until it leaves the six-mile-long LOOP fairway safely. In addition, all ships entering or l e a v i n g the LOOP area will be tracked and guided by LOOP vessel traffic controllers stationed in the LOOP o f f s h o r e c o n t r o l platform. The five and one-half year contract calls for MarineSafety to provide initial and recurrent training for all LOOP mooring masters, assistant mooring masters, and vessel traffic controllers.

In the world's first such training program, MarineSafety will train both mooring masters and vessel traffic controllers simultaneously utilizing two sophisticated electronic simulators. In a fullmission ship simulator the moor- ing masters will be able to stand on the bridge of a simulated 250,000-dwt supertanker and pilot it to a safe mooring or anchorage.

The visual scene, the ship's response, winds and currents, and the LOOP structures will be as they would be in real life. The difference is that the training can be controlled to provide concentrated experience in various types of sea, weather, traffic, and visibility conditions.

Reactions to emergency situations can be practiced over and over without risk to the ship or crew.

Two vessel traffic controllers will be trained with each crew of mooring masters. They will utilize a new Vessel Traffic Control Center simulator recently installed at MarineSafety. From his control position the LOOP vessel traffic controller can observe on radar and communicate by radio with all ships entering or leaving the LOOP area. Over 25 moving ship targets plus all LOOP navigation aids and structures are presented on the traffic controller's radar scope. The characteristics of each radar "blip" such as size, speed, and turning rate can be varied from those of a small fishing boat to a half-million- ton ultra-large crude carrier.

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