Page 69: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (March 2012)

MMA Debuts New Transas Simulator Massachusetts Maritime Academy (MMA) recently opened its start-of-the-art, American Bureau of Shipping Infor- mation Commons Building, whichhouses the Academy?s new Full Mission Ship Simulator, supplied by Transas USA Inc. The 42,000 sq. ft. academic build- ing combines maritime tradition with thelatest technology in maritime training, in-cluding the campus library, museum, archives, model ship collection, plus hi- tech simulation facilities, multimedia ?smart? classroom, and resource centers. The new simulator and its support areas represent the showcase facility for the Marine Transportation program offered at MMA. The simulation facilities in- clude a full mission, 360 degree bridge simulator meeting the highest interna- tional training and certification standards, debriefing room, instructors control room and an ante room. MSG, Safebridge, Videotel Join on ECDIS Training MSG Marine Serve GmbH, its sister company Safebridge GmbH and Videotel recently joined forces to offer a pathway to ECDIS compliance. ?Our researchshows that, conservatively, there are 250,000 officers worldwide requiring type-specific training, which will need to be repeated three times over a 5-year pe- riod to deal with different equipment/software,? said Björn Röhlich, Managing Director of MSG MarineServe and initiator of ETC (the ECDIS Train- ing Consortium). ?This gives some 750,000 type-specific training events, in addition to the 250,000 generic sessions,in comparison with a reported worldwide annual training capacity of 20,000 -25,000 courses.? Videotel will provide the initial generic training. They are updating their original ECDIS course to follow the new STCW Manila amendments and the proposednew IMO Model Course 1.27, latest edi- tion ? the foundation course for allECDIS training. This training, in the form of distance learning using a genericECDIS model, will provide a sound un- derstanding of the principles of theECDIS system and how it should be used. It will be available on VOD and the newly launched VOD Online, so that study can take place seamlessly at sea or on shore. MSG will then continue theprocess. Deck officers, who have ob- tained interim certification of successful foundation training from Videotel, can then progress to type-specific training and final certification by attending one of the training centers located around theworld that form part of the MSG con- trolled ECDIS Training Consortium (ETC), thus gaining the hands-on famil- iarization training required. The type-spe- cific training and final testing will use simulation of the actual ECDIS equip-ment installed on the planned assign-ment.March 2012 www.marinelink.com 69MR March 12 # 9 (65-72):MR Template 3/6/2012 12:45 PM Page 69