Simsea has now got accreditation from the Norwegian Maritime Authority (NMA) to provide both Basic and Advanced training according to the IGF Code. The courses are relevant for masters, officers, ratings and other personnel on ships subject to the IGF code. The courses could also be useful for personnel at LNG farms.

Please note that we as a part of the course run bunkering operations on Kongsberg Engine Room Simulators and that 2 Bunkering Operations at the Advanced course is approved by NMA.

Basic course:

By this course the participants shall gain basic knowledge to be able to contribute to the safe operation of a ship subject to the IGF code. Safe operation includes to prevent hazard, apply occupational health and safety precautions and measures, carry out firefighting, respond to emergencies and to prevent pollution of the environment.  

The content of the Basic course is in accordance with STCW A-V/3-1 including the following aspects of operating ships subject to the IGF code:

• Rules and regulations
• Design and operational characteristics
• Fuel characteristics, fuel systems and fuel storage systems
• Fuel and fuel storage systems’ operations
• Physical properties of fuel
• Safety requirements and safety management
• Hazards associated with operations and hazard controls
• Gas-measuring and similar equipment
• Safe working practices and procedures
• Fire organization, fuel hazards, firefighting agents and methods including fire-fighting system operation
• Emergency procedures
• Measures to be taken in the event of leakage/spillage/venting of fuels

Advanced course:

By this course the participants shall gain familiarity with physical and chemical properties of fuels, competence of operate controls, ability to perform all operations, plan and monitor bunkering of a ship subject to the IGF code. This includes competence to take precautions to prevent pollution, secure compliance with legislative requirements, to prevent hazard, apply occupational health and safety precautions and measures, how to prevent fire and to control firefighting and extinguishing systems.  

The content of the course is in accordance with STCW A-V/3-2 including the following aspects of operating ships subject to the IGF code:

• Safe bunkering including planning and monitoring
• Operating principles of marine power plants
• Ships’ auxiliary machinery
• Marine engineering terms
• Design and characteristics of ships, systems and equipment
• Fuel system theory and characteristics including pumps
• Effects of pollution
• Measures to be taken in the event of spillage/leakage/venting
• MARPOL, other relevant IMO instruments, industry guidelines and commonly applied port regulations
• Hazard and control measures
• Safety equipment
• Safe working practises and procedures
• Firefighting methods and appliances

Simsea has over the years trained thousands of deck officers to avoid and handle challenging situations that can occur on-board a ship. The deck officers typically come from all kinds of trades and ships. We train them in leadership, situation awareness, stress handling, decision making, communication, teamwork, etc. However, and that is a paradox, we very seldom train engineers! Now, our engine room simulators are not in use.

This is primarily a paradox because most incidents on-board a modern ship is caused by issues in the engine room. The incident at Hustadvika in Norway this year where a cruise ship faced server trouble is in fact not a special case. It doesn’t require much fantasy to imagine the stress the engineers must have felt on-board Viking Sky when the ship drifted towards striking rocks or hopefully a solid attachment for the anchors.

Many sailing engineers have no experience from such situations and the sad truth is that nor are they trained to handle them. It is of cause a big difference from day to day routine work in the engine room to problem solving under severe stress. Very capable engineers working as instructors in Simsea confirm this. Most maritime engineers need to be trained in handling engine trouble under server stress. This includes beeing on top of the situation; dicover and understand, and maintain a proactive attitude to the circumstances surrounding them. At the same time they need to be capable of share their observations, understanding and actions with colleagues and bridge to create a shared situation awareness.

Remember, “a safe ship has engineers that can handle a crisis as well as routine work”. Practice makes perfect.

Simsea now offers many training courses where we combine simulator training with e-learning. We call this blended training.

So, why do we do this?

In our continuous improvement work we focus on changes that meet our key success criteria:

• Increased learning outcome
• Credible documentation
• Reduced training costs

Our training schemes traditionally consist of a practical doing part and a part where we teach the relevant theory behind the doing. The Practice doing part place in simulators and is prepared by a thorough brief and summed up by a debrief where student reflection is an important element. Most of the theory has been taught in classroom lectures.  An important issue for us has been to find a more effective learning method for teaching theory than classroom lectures often characterized by challenges like students’ mixed motivation, mixed competence and lack of a common terminology.

We have landed on e-learning as our main method for teaching theory. In an e-learning module theory will typically be presented by text, pictures and videos. And – each part of the module will have tests that the student shall have to pass. We run all e-learning on a separate specially designed computer program. Computers facilitates the presentation of educational material according to students’ learning needs, as indicated by their responses to questions, tasks and experiences. In this way e-learning is adaptive, it is student active, it facilitates common competence and terminology and – it assures and document the learning outcome.

Our blended training approach is approved by the governmental bodies like NMA and has been well received by all stakeholders. The customers appreciate it because it means more value for money; the increase in learning outcome, the credible documentation and the reduced costs by reducing number of days at the simulation center. The individual course participant appreciates it because it reduces the stay away from home and family.

FORCES AT SEA

A seagoing vessel is subjected to forces from wind, waves and current as well as from forces generated by the propulsion system. The Dynamic positioning – DP automatically maintain the vessel’s position and heading using its propellers and thrusters.

The vessel’s response to these forces, i.e. its changes in position, heading and speed, is measured by the position-reference systems, the gyrocompass and the vertical reference sensors. Reference systems readings are corrected for roll and pitch using readings from the vertical reference sensors. Wind speed and direction are measured by the wind sensors.

The K-Pos dynamic positioning control system calculates the forces that the thrusters must produce in order to control the vessel’s motion in three degrees of freedom – surge, sway and yaw – in the horizontal plane.

CONTROL PRINCIPLES

The K-Pos system is designed to keep the vessel within specified position and heading limits, and to minimise fuel consumption and wear and tear on the propulsion equipment. In addition, the K-Pos system tolerates transient errors in the measurement systems and acts appropriately if a fault occurs in the thruster units.

AVAILABLE DYNAMIC POSITIONING SYSTEMS

• Go to Dynamic Positioning system overview

RELATED

• DYNAMIC POSITIONING SYSTEM MODES AND FUNCTIONSOur dynamic positioning systems can be operated in a variety of different modes.
• IMO DP CLASSIFICATIONOverview of IMO dynamic positioning – DP Class requirements
• DYNAMIC POSITIONING SYSTEM REDUNDANCY PRINCIPLEA dynamic positioning system is a system that automatically controls a vessel’s position and heading exclusively by use of active thrust.

TRAINING

Simsea is accredited by Nautical Institute (NI) to provide DP training. The training consists of two courses; DP Induction and DP Simulator. Each course takes 5 days and includes training on our K-POS DP simulators. Candidates have to document a certain amount of seatime between the courses and after before they will get their DP certificate from NI.

Simsea is also accredited to provide DPO certification by DNV GL. The training includes courses and seatime between the courses. In addition, candidates need to take a specialization course for the kind of vessel they will work on. After these courses candidates have to pass a theoretical and practical test before they get their DPO certificate from Simsea.