News from Svendborg

Wednesday, 09 May 2012 08:04

Back to the Future

- But do we rely too much on technology?

asks Lars Østergaard

Never have seafarers had as much information at their fingertips as they do today. Especially in the two decades since I first went to sea, the job of the navigator has been transformed. I think wonderfully but also dangerously so, not just in terms of a reliance on technology, but in the pitfalls in interpretation of the signals.

I'm not talking about the inability to pick up a sextant and look to the horizon and translate the data collected onto an accurate position on a chart. That is an issue we cannot skip, but it has got to be remembered that machines are not fallible and what we must retain is the human ability to question their findings.

Perhaps the majority of our navigational tools today rely on satellites. Between us and the satellites lies the ionosphere. There's an eleven-year cycle which sees the sun pulsing out great flares which put more energy into the ionosphere, this causes the molecules to break up and disperse. The result is interference, making radio signals zig and zag. Zig and zag means a longer line, more time and a distorted message which delays reception of signals that could cause the loss of the precise position.

Misreading information or information that is misleading will lead to some seaborne mishap or disaster and the only safety valve will be the navigators' intuition to question all that is in front, beside and below them . . . and in their ability to being able to go back to basics.

We've just upgraded our ECDIS suites at Maersk Training, a routine and provident move. You know the result if you don't upgrade your in-car navigation system and you are on a new stretch of road, 'the voice' gets totally confused. You get there, but not without a little recalculating.

There is however some technology up there which needs more than an upgrading. There are three satellite navigations systems up there at the moment, the Russians have GLONASS and the Americans the GPS that we have grown to love.

Now the Europeans are making a contribution and it may prove to be the most significant. This is important since the GPS system is now in technology terms an old boy and is showing its age – the system is also a victim of its popularity. The old satellite will come out of commission in about three years, replaced by new versions which with three frequencies are more capable of dealing with today's technology.

The European version Galileo, is the new kid on the block and won't be fully operational until 2019, has certain advantages. It alone allows distress signals from the user's transmitter to go directly to a Rescue Coordination Centre which in turn initiates the rescue. It doesn't end there, in the professional version, the craft or person in trouble then gets a response to say help is on its way. What might end here is those long drawn out Hollywood survival sequences. What would it have done on the Titanic to have an immediate fix of location and for the ships nearby to understand the magnitude of the situation?

But back to the GPS over-use issue. What back-up is there if the screen goes fuzzy? It maybe that we have to take a technological step back and rely on shore-based beacon equipment as with RACON. Highly reliable it does have a range issue but since most navigational demands are when nearing land, it will be useful.

Many of the traditional beacons, like lighthouses, have diminished but what is opening up are areas of navigation never before undertaken by large craft. Global warming is opening up the North-West Passage creating a whole new economic region and route. Iceberg incidents are not confined to the last century, in recent years cruise liners taking adventure tourists to the Antarctic have come off second best in close encounters.

The warning signs are all flashing and one signal we are sending out from Maersk Training is that total or overreliance on technology is a danger you avoid at your peril.

Monday, 30 April 2012 12:08

Maersk Training to create a world first

Dynamic Positioning gets universal standard

Maersk Training is introducing the first standard-making assessment programme for DP operators. Instructors at their Svendborg headquarters are putting together a programme which will enable clients to gauge the capabilities of 'dry hire' crews. The creation of the progamme is at the request of Maersk Oil Qatar. There has been a history of hired in crews having been on DP courses, other than on those conducted by Maersk Training, and have displayed greatly differing degrees of competence.

Maritime Instructor Karsten Haegg explained that the programme won't have a pass or fail mark, the participant will work towards a score which will show their level of competence. It will then be up to the hiring client to decide if this level is sufficient. 'We will make up the course and give it to the client for them to say if this is the field they want to cover, it is then up to the participant to cover it as best they can and then again it's up to the client to decide if this is adequate for their needs and standards.'

'We in fact are setting a standard. Where it gets complicated is in perception – we can give the participant a scenario and task. They can then place the vessel where they like. Now there might be no perfect or obvious position to place the vessel, there might be several options, each one having a different virtue over the others. So we have to set a standard which says what exactly did the participant take into consideration, did he for example consider subsea assets, did he consider crane positions, calculate the weather? To able to mark this we need a very specific task, one where it is easy to gauge correctly considered manoeuvres. We need to have something that is black and white,' said Karsten.

It is a test for competence rather than learning. It will consist of two main parts, theoretical knowledge and assessment in the simulator. The simulator section will also be in two parts, one in dynamic positioning and one in ship-handling.

Maersk Oil has requested the simulator has a vessel model with ASD, Azimuth stern-drive. That is why ship-handling will form an important part of the assessment.

The assessment will be for four participants at a time. The first of the one day assessments will be for Maersk Oil Qatar and conducted at the facilities Maersk Training shares with Elcome in Dubai, but will also be available at all Maersk Training DP training centres.

Recorder

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 15:08

www.maersktraining.com/blog

President Obama has done it and before November will do it again and again and Barbra Streisand will jump on his every word, Tom Cruise uses it religiously and former Italian president Silvio Berlusconi even used it in preference, or in addition to, his vast media empire to try to hang on to office. They blog.

There’s something immediate and intimate about blogging above all other new media trends and tools and now at Maersk Training we’re blogging too.

Much of our teaching methodology is based around listening to and responding to those we teach and the environments they find themselves in that for us to establish a blog is entirely understandable.

Our team of bloggers just happen to be our chief instructors and it is their expertise that they want to bounce around out there gaining feedback and deeper insight. For those who read the blogs they will get access to life at Maersk Training on a new level. The purpose of blogging is not to sell or survey, rather it is to involve those who have a common interest or goal by giving them an opportunity to contribute.

You can catch up on the latest blogs by logging on to our website, www.maersktraining.com/blog.

blog2

Wednesday, 04 April 2012 14:50

DP gets footprint in Singapore

Maersk Training Svendborg have signed an agreement with Marine Technologies in Singapore which further extends the global reach of its DP training programme. Recently Maersk Training entered into cooperation with Elcome International in Dubai and DP courses have already been conducted at their Middle Eastern headquarters. Now this latest agreement, which comes on the back of setting- up a DP suite in Singapore and receiving Nautical Institute accreditation, has meant that Basic and Advanced courses have already been conducted in the Far East with more due imminently.

Monday, 19 March 2012 11:56

DP Sea Time Reduction

Maersk Training Svendborg is back to time-saving for dynamic positioning certificate seeking seafarers having successfully run pilot courses for the DP Sea Time Reduction programme. Several courses are due this year. The course, which is accredited by the Nautical Institute and is only conducted by a total of three training centres worldwide, reduces the amount of sea time required to get a full DP operator certificate by up to 12 weeks. It is possible to reduce sea time by six weeks by just doing one part of the course.

To gain the full benefit it is probably the most difficult course to schedule since to be totally effective in terms of time-saving and cost-effectiveness in terms of participants, it needs to synchronise the calendars of up to nine individuals – no mean organisational feat.

The full course is split into two five -day training periods which must be separated by a minimum of 30 days actual sea time.

However there is a need created by the demand for more and more DP qualified officers and with the oil majors being prepared to pay extra for a high grade of service from the shipping companies.

With technology playing a bigger and bigger role in today’s seafaring, there is the question of what happens if a fuse blows. ‘We put in errors on purpose,’ says instructor Karsten Haegg, ‘we do it so that there isn’t a total reliance on technology and operators are reminded that manual skills are vital in case something goes down. We therefore put them in a situation where they have to go to manual.’

Simulator 2

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