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44 Maritime Reporter & Engineering News ? SEPTEMBER 2013 system that would also have undergone an automatic shutdown. Meanwhile, he could be watching the actions of another student who would be in charge of port- side operations to see the he or she car- ried out the appropriate actions there. From separate consoles, shipside and shore-side, operators can communicate with each other to coordinate responses.Training at Sea But not all navigation training at the AkademiaMorsaka in Szczecin is class-room theory of electronic simulation. The university has an excellent training ship, the 60 by 10.5-m M/V Naviga-tor XXI which was purpose built at the Gda
sk Shipyard Remontowa in 1995. With accommodations for up to 30 stu- dents, six researchers and 11 crew, the vessel carries a wide range of naviga-tional and research electronics. An ex- panded bridge provides extra chart table and radar monitors for student use. A sophisticated side-scan sonar (272 TD; EdgeTech USA), as well as an array of other instrumentation, is installed for re-searchers. A recent addition to the vessel?s elec- tronics is a Kongsberg Maritime EM710 multibeam echo sounder. This device is a system for mapping the sea bottom working on sonar frequencies from 70 up to 100 kHz for a depth resolution of just one cm and a maximum working depth of 2000 meters. With transmit- ters afÞ xed to the ships hull the system?s software provides compensation for the vessel?s role and pitch. In late May the ship left Szczecin for a typical two-week voyage that would take 28 Þ rst year students on a familiar- ization experience. In the Þ rst week they would visit Kiel and then pick up three Polish Þ sheries inspectors. The ship?s crew would operate one of the ship?s two fast rescue craft to assist the inspec-tors in boarding Þ shing vessels of vari- ous EU nations in the Baltic Sea during the second week. A third component of the voyage would be the participation of a university researcher working with a new program in three-dimensional sonar image interpretation. In the Engine RoomAs a university, the AkademiaMorska in Szczecin undertakes leading edge re-search in a wide range of maritime re-lated Þ elds. The Faculty of Engineering has two teaching engines with one pow-ering a generator and the other a shaft that passes through a watertight seal to a propeller in a large tank. This allows realistic torque loading and measuring. This engine, a classic built in 1956, has all the components necessary to intro-duce students to the principles of a diesel engine. To ready students for internships on deep sea vessels the faculty has op-erational simulators for a VLCC with a 5L90MC MAN engine and a container- ship with a Wärtsilä 12RTA84 main en- gine. Additional graphic simulators are provided for several more engine types. At the same time, research is ongoing in areas such as after-treatment of diesel exhaust to meet the more stringent level 3 and 4 emission controls. In this work a new engine is installed in the shop and equipped with sensing devices to moni-tor combustion and other parameters. The after treatment device is tested for emission reduction at varied operational parameters. Other work, in the faculty research laboratory, works to determine variables in content and make-up of both oil and water in propulsion application. This is an extensive and complex facility with wide ranging capabilities for ma-rine engineering research. The Faculty of Navigation is also involved with cutting edge research. Deputy Dean of Science, Prof. Zbig-niew Pietrzykowski has worked with his research-team to develop a naviga-tional decision support system for sea-going ships. NAVDEC goes beyond the information coordination of ARPA and ECDIS to actually present navigational solutions to avoid collisions at sea by integrating the collision regulations with the electronic data received from the ra-dar, AIS, electronic charts, GPS and oth- MARKET FOCUS TRAINING & EDUCATION Deputy Rector for Maritime Affairs, Capt. Andrzej Bak, spent considerable time at sea both before and after earning a PhD at the university. Dr. Zbigniew Pietrzykowski, designer of NAVDEC, Navigation Decison Support System for Sea-Going Ships. MR #9 (42-49).indd 44MR #9 (42-49).indd 449/3/2013 12:12:33 PM9/3/2013 12:12:33 PM