Training over 5,000 Coast Guard members, shipboard firefighters, chief engineers, cabin stewards, waiters and captains of cruise ships, Maritime Professional Training (MPT) in Florida is a facility that attracts seafarers from around the world. All the conditions that can lead to an at-sea disaster can be re-created inside their $5 million simulator. Now, the facility is being called on for answers to calls for a new look at cruise ship safety.
“There’s still value in learning from that,” Capt. Ted Morley, MPT’s chief operations officer told the Chronicle Herald. “We can simulate any ship anywhere.”
The 40 instructors at MPT, the largest school of its kind in the United States, has graduates that work for Carnival, Holland America, Princess and other cruise lines. As the details of the Costa Concordia accident come into focus, what happened off the Italian coast will also become a scenario in the simulator.
Re-created with details that include the exact weather conditions, the reefs and rocks on the ocean floor, even the commands given that resulted in 11 deaths with 20 passengers still missing, the simulation is expected to be a textbook scenario.
“This incident will go into the books,” Morley says. “This will be one that people will learn from for a long time.”
Carnival Corporation established the Center for Simulator Maritime Training (CSMART) in the Netherlands which features the latest state of the art equipment and instructional tools to provide participants with a superior maritime training experience that will foster critical thinking, problem solving, ethical decision making, and confidence.
CSMART offers two full mission bridge simulators, six part-task bridge simulators and the ability to simulate fixed propeller and azipod simulation. Let’s take a look:
Related articles
- Costa Concordia: What’s next? (chriscruises.net)
- Cruise company takes care of business, focuses on the future (chriscruises.net)
- Cruise experts gather to address fears (chriscruises.net)
- U.S. Congress to Hold Meeting on Cruise Ship Safety (marinelink.com)
- Pinoy Stories on Costa Concordia (theanythingvanessa.com)
[...] the Concordia grounding affected the industry safety? Read Chris Owen’s article on how the Concordia simulation will be the key to future safety in the cruise [...]