Role Models
With Warsash Maritime Academy's exhilarating portfolio of training initiatives, high quality students are beating a path to its door. Fire fighting, boat handling, sea survival and communications are aimed at personnel ranging from captains to hospitality staff.
But it's the Academy's attention to dealing with 'what if' scenarios that is giving it worldwide exposure. One of its most innovative projects is its miniature fleet, which trains skippers to pilot the world's largest ships.
Its Marchwood-based manned model ship handling lake gives students the chance to steer two-man 30ft replicas of tankers, bulk carriers and ferries through the complicated manoeuvres needed to keep cargo and crew safe in the most challenging conditions.
The 1:40 scale electrically powered models are steered through simulated currents and a range of berths, giving tomorrow's captains an experience that will never be matched through textbooks.
Supertankers can be up to a quarter mile in length and take a long time to stop, so there is no room for error. The Academy's models handle like the real thing and in them students learn to deal with hazardous situations with no risk to themselves or the environment.
The training comes in the wake of a worldwide shortage of captains and a boom in supertankers, with 110 new vessels being built to cope with the increased global demand for liquid natural gas.
Senior lecturer, Gordon Maxwell, said: "Pilots and skippers like to be exposed to the elements. You can get simulators, but to be out on the water emulates the unpredictable nature of seafaring.
"Our training prepares them for the real thing. We aim to prevent disasters. The cost of ships and their cargoes is enormous and you can multiply that by 100 if you have a major spillage."
The lake is one of a range of top training facilities that have received international attention from the shipping industry in a climate where maritime safety and ecological protection is gaining ground.
Deck, engineer and electro-technical officer cadets, as well as senior officers on competency and safety training courses, are exposed to hands-on courses that are as likely to have them out on a stormy day on the Hamble, as handling the ship's bridge and engine room from one of the Academy's state-of-the-art simulators.
www.mannedmodels.com|
Warsash open days
At Warsash it's not unusual to see full blown 'emergencies' being dealt with by lecturers and students working with response experts and harbour masters, and open days are a tad unusual. In the most recent, hundreds of potential recruits – from as far afield as Cyprus – were treated to a thrilling flypast and helicopter rescue demonstration as the coastguard crew 'saved' administration assistant Kim Scott from the freezing Hamble as he played survivor for the day.
In a region so bound up in maritime culture and industry, it's comforting to know that lessons learned on the open seas, in classrooms, simulators and purpose-built lakes, are being used in real life operations across the world to ensure the industry prospers in safe, clean seas.