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Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy: In The News

MID-ATLANTIC MARITIME ACADEMY ANNOUNCES NEW INTERACTIVE ENGINE ROOM AND BRIDGE SIMULATION FOR FULL VESSEL MANAGEMENT TRAINING

Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy in Virginia Beach, VA has announced the installation of a Transas ERS4000 Engine Room Simulator.  The simulator provides state of the art marine engineering training, including the capability of integration with the school’s full-bridge ship-handling simulator for joint bridge/engine room training exercises.

Full Vessel Resource Management integrates Transas full bridge simulation with Transas full engine room simulation.  For the first time, bridge and engineering can train together on land and practice ship-threatening casualties.  Different scenarios can be explored for restricted waters and open ocean. Scenarios such as how the crew should react when the engine room alarms sound, the ship sails into the danger and the Captain demands information.  

The ERS4000 includes classroom demonstrations and scenario playback, stand-alone and team watchstanding operation of the engineering plant in a computer lab setting, as well as watch-standing operations in an engine control room mockup with dedicated control consoles and switchboards.  

The simulator is IMO STCW- 95 compliant for watch keeping functions at both support and operational levels, for training unlicensed and licensed watch-standers. With three dimensional visualization software, training is also extended to engine room familiarization training for entry- level personnel.  

Several diesel-engineering plants are featured. Diesel propulsion models for various ship types (general cargo, containership, and large crude carrier) include various slow speed MAN & Burmeister Wain as well as Wartsila- Sulzer engines, featuring direct-reversible fixed pitch propeller systems. A medium speed Pielstick model (Roll-on Roll-off vessel), featuring a controllable pitch propeller system is also featured.  A diesel-electric drive model shall be added when it becomes available. High speed models based on Caterpillar 3500 series engines are also featured, including an ultra-modern asimuthing stern drive tug, as well as a fishing trawler with reversing gears.  

A steam propulsion plant is also featured, modeled from an LNG gas carrier. Dual fuel boilers furnishing steam to geared steam turbine drives is modeled. As with the diesel propulsion plants, all propulsion systems and machinery, auxiliary systems and machinery, and electricity generating plants are featured as fully integrative allowing operation in a plant stand-alone mode or fully integrated mode, allowing for flexibility for training. A gas turbine model will be added when it becomes available.  

Retired Captain/Commandant Joins Virginia Beach Maritime Academy:

Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy announced that Captain Robert G. Allee will join the Virginia Beach based school.  In this new position he will continue to impact the seagoing merchant marine, military and marine transportation industry as an advanced class instructor.
 
Allee left his post as Commandant of Midshipmen at the United States Merchant Maritime Academy in New York to retire to Virginia Beach this spring.  Previous to his position as Commandant, Captain Allee had a distinguished career of 31 years in the United States Navy and Merchant Marine.  His last Naval assignment was as Deputy Director of Logistics Plans and Policy on the staff of the Chief of Naval Operations.  Captain Allee's personal awards include the Legion of Merit (two awards), the Defense Meritorious Medal, the Navy Meritorious Service Medal, the Maritime Service Superior Performance Medal, the Navy Commendation Medal (two awards), the Navy Achievement Medal (two awards), and various other unit and campaign awards.

Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy is a full service maritime school that trains men and women for deck and engineering positions, and prepares them for United States Coast Guard merchant mariner licenses from entry level through Unlimited Master and Chief Engineer.

TRANSAS USA to supply Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy with full mission ship handling simulator:

Transas USA is pleased to announce the supply of a Full Mission Ship Handling simulator to the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy based in Virginia Beach, VA. The simulator, based on the Transas NT Pro 4000 simulation software, will consist of a 225 degree horizontal field of view forward combined with three rear viewing channels. The bridge equipment is convertible to enable ship handling training on large vessels as well as tugs and offshore supply vessels. Transas was also contracted to supply all related PC hardware and the supply included control equipment such as Z-Drive and Voight-Schneider propulsion controls seen on most tugs and offshore vessels. The Full Mission simulator will be an extension of the already existing ARPA / Radar and ECDIS classroom simulators. In addition, Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy is equipped with the Transas TGS4100 GMDSS simulator and is able to offer a full range of USCG and STCW approved maritime training courses from Able Seaman to Master Mariner.  The installation of the simulator will complete an expansion program of the M.A.M.A., while filling an increasing need for a full service maritime training facility in the Mid-Atlantic region. >> Click here for complete Release in PDF

High-tech tool puts maritime academy training to the test:

• The $500,000 ship-handling simulator replicates the sights, sounds and equipment in the pilothouse of commercial vessels – from tugs to cruise ships. Plasma screens can re-create ports and conditions from around the world. CHRIS TYREE PHOTOS | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT

  By JON W. GLASS, The Virginian-Pilot

  © October 6, 2007

  VIRGINIA BEACH

  For the seasoned seamen in the room, the task seemed straightforward enough: Maneuver a 5,000-ton offshore supply vessel down the Elizabeth River and dock it at a Craney Island pier.

  But John Sitka III, head of academics at the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy, wasn't going to make it easy for the trainees.

  Seated at a computer screen one room away, Sitka clicked up a perfect storm of simulated scenarios.

  One trainee had to react when a tanker ship caught fire at the pier, sending crew members into the water. Another had to deal with near-hurricane conditions, bringing the ship in as rain blew sideways, thunder rumbled and heaving seas pitched the vessel to and fro. A third had to dock the ship at night.

  All these situations were made possible by the academy's new ship-handling simulator, a high-tech training tool that replicates the sights, sounds and equipment in the pilothouse of commercial vessels - from tugs to ocean-going cargo and cruise ships.

  Standing at the full-bridge simulator, peering at wall-mounted plasma screens that serve as pilothouse windows, trainees get a captain's-eye view as they steer a vessel through a virtual port of Hampton Roads - or various other ports worldwide available on computer software.

  The feeling of being on the water is real enough that it can make you seasick.

  "Especially when you get the seas, you feel as if you're moving," said David Ennis, a Birmingham, Alabama, mariner who works on an exploratory drilling ship for Houston-based GlobalSantaFe Corp.

  Schnyder Ciceron, a Portsmouth resident who works on a supply vessel for Covington, La.-based Hornbeck Offshore Services Inc., had to rescue the crewmen who abandoned the burning tanker.

  "Even though this is a simulation, you still feel scared that you're going to run them over," said Ciceron, who, like Ennis, is seeking a third mate's license.

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• Jim Miller, president of the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy in Virginia Beach, works with a ship-handling simulator that puts the school’s trainees through a variety of scenarios they could face on board commercial vessels.

  This week, the two mariners were part of the first class of a half-dozen to train on the simulator.

  "I'm pretty impressed," Ennis said.

  Academy and industry officials say it is the only full-bridge simulator available between Baltimore and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for training commercial mariners.

  The technology, which academy executives said cost more than $500,000, is part of a larger, $1 million expansion - an effort to position the school as the East Coast's market leader for training mariners in the highly regulated maritime industry.

  A group of nine investors purchased the former Tidewater School of Navigation in May and changed its name as part of the makeover.

  "We're turning this from, really, a very small business, which is typical of some of these certification businesses, into an institution," said investor Arthur Goldman Jr., the academy's chairman and chief executive officer.

  The academy has moved its headquarters into a suburban office building off Diamond Springs Road and now occupies 7,500 square feet, with plans to eventually double its space.

  With the simulator and a broader range of classes, Jim Miller, the academy's president, said he hopes to tap the international market.

  The school is lining up classes later this year for mariners working on liquid natural gas vessels for British Gas, said Miller, who piloted oil tankers in Alaska for 25 years before becoming a ship-docking tugboat captain in Hampton Roads.

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• Capt. Carl Smith, right, instructor for the Mid-Atlantic Maritime Academy’s Basic Shiphandling class, works with Schnyder Ciceron at the controls of the academy’s ship-handling simulator, which replicates conditions inside the pilothouse of commercial vessels.

  Courses that the academy now offers, he said, enable mariners to become certified for positions ranging from able-bodied seaman to unlimited master captain.

  Sitka, a retired Navy chief petty officer who later operated vessels for shipping company Maersk, said the Coast Guard and ship owners have pushed for more training since the 1989 Exxon Valdez accident in Alaska. The tanker strayed off course and became grounded, spilling 11 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound.

  "There are liability issues companies have to deal with now," Sitka said. From a mariner's perspective, "the more training you have, the more marketable you are and the more opportunities you have."

  While other schools in the area offer various kinds of training, the academy's simulator adds a new dimension for mariners working in Hampton Roads, industry officials said.

  "Having somebody local with that kind of capability sure makes life easier for us," said Capt. Elliott Westall, general manager of McAllister Towing of Virginia in Newport News, which operates 11 tugs in the region.

  "In a port as significant as Hampton Roads, it's just nice to have a facility like that," said Capt. Bill Cofer, president of the Virginia Beach-based Virginia Pilot Association.

  Goldman, whose background is in business management, calls the simulator "the world's greatest video game." It was made by marine technology company Transas USA, based in Seattle with an office in Fort Lauderdale.

  The simulator is designed to present seamen with situations they would encounter on the water, said Paul Welling, sales manager of marine technologies for Transas in Florida.

  "You can throw things at them - all of a sudden, a little sailboat appears that you never saw before, or you're in a docking situation and slowly but surely the wind increases because there's a cold front coming in," he said. "We can give them additional currents and tides."

  Earlier in the week, Sitka, sitting in the control room, was throwing everything the software had at the trainees.

  "Think I ought to put the pier on fire?" he asked at one point.

  "No, go ahead and let them dock," Miller said. "They need the practice."

  Jon W. Glass, (757) 446-2318, jon.glass@pilotonline.com

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