1. Overview
Like other professionals, the novice seaman must learn new concepts, skills, laws, and practices — but unlike them, the mariner must apply that learning in a wholly new environment and become so adept at living and working in it that once-alien reactions become intuitive. That intuition is what the author calls sea sense. Because of it, maritime training runs deeper than most professions, starts at a more basic level, and must continue throughout a career.
Training comes in two forms. Formal training — through private, union, and governmental facilities — receives the most attention and is generally handled well. The equally important informal training — continuous self-study and contact with shipmates, peers and seniors alike — unfortunately gets less attention, yet it is through informal training that a seaman learns priorities and adjusts theory to reality.
1.1 Where Shiphandling Training Begins
Initial training in shiphandling and piloting is given at the maritime academies, much of it aboard smaller vessels and on simulators. Significant training then continues aboard ship from several sources, summarized below.
| # | Source of onboard shiphandling training | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Masters and senior officers | At-sea shiphandling, anticollision maneuvering, work at the pilot station or anchorage. |
| 2 | Pilots and docking masters | Few mariners take the initiative to tap this source; pilots are proud of their skills and willing to share, but in reality pilots mainly train other pilots. |
| 3 | Passive observation of shiphandlers at work | Laudable but unproductive — like learning heart surgery by watching a transplant on television. |
| 4 | Study of textbooks and video training material | Personal and company supplied. |
| 5 | Simulator programs and scale-model basin facilities | A good grasp of shiphandling and bridge procedures in routine and emergency situations. |
2. Onboard Training of Ship's Officers
Every officer serves aboard a multimillion-dollar training aid: the ship herself, plus the company and personal material aboard her, are all available, and it is in the master's and company's interest to encourage their use. Training opportunities are limited only by a master's imagination and initiative — bridge demonstrations and critiques of real situations, informal coffee-time discussions, and planned sessions covering anchoring, stopping a ship, conning, making a lee for a pilot, and Williamson Turn / man-overboard exercises.
2.1 Start at the Most Basic Level
Masters must insist that deck officers conn the ship to new headings rather than just hand the helmsman a course to steer, so officers develop a feel for the ship and the rudder she needs. Deck officers should handle the ship when anchoring or picking up the pilot while the master observes and corrects. Every mate must be ready for the next higher position — especially the chief mate, who should do as much shiphandling as possible. As the author puts it, a promotion is not an opportunity to start training; it is recognition of skills already possessed. When routinely maneuvering, explain to the officers what you are doing and why, and point out how the ship backs into the wind or the bow falls off to starboard going astern — seeing it once impresses more than reading it a dozen times.
2.2 Curing the "Don't Touch" Syndrome
Inexperience breeds the "don't touch" syndrome — a real hesitancy to use bridge equipment. The remedy is the hands-on session: insist each officer repeatedly use the telegraph, sound the whistle, and put the rudder hard over — yes, at sea speed; it will not damage anything — then go astern, ahead, astern again. There is no magic to shiphandling, just experience, good sense, and confidence; no one becomes proficient until totally comfortable making the ship respond.
Most ships carry a video player, and good training videos on shiphandling and ship behavior can be leased; trade publications such as Safety at Sea and Professional Mariner should be aboard as training material. Some masters combine fire and emergency drills with training sessions held over coffee beforehand, so crew and officers develop greater interest and soon request specific subjects. Distribute educational material to all aboard, licensed and unlicensed — your interest is contagious.
3. Onboard Training of Pilots
Even with modern simulation, there is still no better training for apprentice pilots than hands-on experience aboard ship. It has grown harder for ship's officers to develop skills on larger, fast-turnaround ships with smaller crews, but pilots — by the very nature of their work — still have daily access to the ultimate training tool: the ship. The importance of hands-on training should not be downplayed in favor of written tests, classroom time, and simulators; other teaching systems have simply not reached the sophistication needed to replace shipboard experience.
3.1 The Ship as a Laboratory
Apprentice pilots must make full use of the ship and her equipment — radars, GPS, ECDIS, ARPA, AIS, fathometers, Doppler, and the latest steering gear — using each in every possible mode to keep skills current. Too many pilots default the radar to the head-up presentation simply because they are comfortable with it, yet head-up makes relative motion of other ships hard to read as targets shift on the PPI during maneuvers; it is, however, less error-prone when feeling up a narrow channel in fog. There is a proper time for each mode, and the ship is a laboratory in which to experiment. Pilots should question ship's officers about new gear and trade shiphandling knowledge for it.
When training an apprentice, create opportunities to use tugs or an anchor in less common situations and require navigation by RADAR and ECDIS on clear days. The author urges shiphandlers to over-navigate — take a fix even on the thousandth clear-day trip up the river — because it sharpens skills and may save you when fog sets in on a strange ship. Insist on many night passages and trips on difficult ships, and assign a specific pilot responsible for training who continually updates requirements.
3.2 Standardization and Self-Defense
There is political pressure to standardize and formalize pilot training under a single federal license, but conditions differ so much from port to port that standard requirements cannot fit all — that difference is the very reason pilotage exists. Some associations have no formal program; others have strict standards exceeding any statute, plus peer evaluation often more effective than any federal scheme. The author argues that, in self-defense, every association should establish formal training and definite standards to qualify an apprentice — if they do not, others will, and the profession will suffer.
4. Shiphandling Simulators
For generations, teachers used books, lectures, and written tests to teach shiphandling theory; mariners then went aboard ship to apply classroom knowledge in the real world, filling the gaps between theory and application by trial and error. Those gaps were sometimes sizable — as any mate recalls from that first lonely bridge watch after the master stepped below. With simulation, mates, masters, and apprentice pilots can apply theory to real-world situations without being aboard ship, and simulator-based instruction is now part of training at the US Merchant Marine Academy, the state academies, union schools, and private facilities worldwide. Situations that would take years to witness on the job can be controlled, evaluated, and critiqued without bending a single plate of steel.
4.1 The Rule of Threes
Simulator training follows two basic Rules of Threes, set out below. Together, the three components and three steps change the very nature of instruction — not only for mariners but for airline pilots and power-plant operators too. Simulators are powerful, but simulation is not a panacea: mariners are generalists in an era of specialization, and not every task a deck officer performs can yet be taught on a simulator.
| Rule of Threes | The three elements |
|---|---|
| Three components of a good simulator program | the simulator · the instructor · the curriculum |
| Three steps of effective simulator training | classroom briefing (theory) · the simulator exercise · the all-important debriefing where performance is reviewed and critiqued |
5. Simulators as Innovative Training Aids
Simulators fill a long-recognized gap between classroom instruction and hands-on application of operating skills — shiphandling, rules of the road, radar, navigation, watchkeeping, bridge procedures, and bridge resource management. Within a controlled classroom, ship's officers and pilots can practice new techniques with an instructor and peers, transfer theory to real-world situations, deal with multiple problems concurrently rather than sequentially, and learn to prioritize tasks under the same high stress faced aboard ship.
Shiphandling is an operating skill: the principles come from books and lectures, but proficiency comes only through practice — one does not learn the piano by reading about it. Before simulation, the learning process could not be completed without going aboard ship; now fundamentals can be practiced, poor habits corrected, and basic proficiency demonstrated first. Crucially, where paper could only test skills sequentially, the simulator lets officers handle several tasks simultaneously and learn the all-important art of shifting priorities in changing conditions — it actually teaches operating skills rather than just explaining them.
6. Types of Simulators
There are two basic types of simulator. Model-based simulators have pilots and deck officers ride in large scale models while learning shiphandling. Computer-based simulators use a bridge mock-up and a computer-driven presentation — either an image of the area generated entirely by the computer with the ship's behavior programmed as an overlay, or a computer-generated image with points of light projected onto it. Each has advantages and disadvantages, and both, properly operated, are very effective.
7. Scale Model-Based Simulators
Scale model facilities use large models of various ship types on specially designed lakes laid out with channels, docks, locks, canals, mooring buoys, single-point moorings, and anchorages. The student rides in the model with another student or an instructor. The model-based simulator gives a dynamic presentation of bottom and bank effects, wind and sea conditions, and intership effects as two ships pass; the models respond to external wind and current and behave like a real ship when backed and turned. Anchor work is practiced under normal and emergency conditions using an actual anchor. These are real floating craft in real water obeying the laws of hydrodynamics, so the effect felt by the shiphandler is correct, even though scaled down.
7.1 Scale — Is It Important?
Because the simulation is scaled down, neither the external effects nor ship behavior can occur in real time. Shiphandlers speak of having a feel for a ship — taking the right action at the right time from an almost instinctive sense of her behavior, an ability gained by handling similar ships for years. One might expect the lack of real-time response to be a major disadvantage, yet most officers and pilots insist they quickly adjust to the scaled time, so it does not seem to degrade training. Any disadvantage is partly offset because many effects can be felt in a dynamic, scaled-down vessel moving through water in a way present computer equipment cannot match. General agreement — strongest among experienced pilots who have used both types — is that scale does not degrade the effectiveness of model simulators, and the more experienced shiphandlers tend to appreciate scale-model training most.
8. Computer-Based Simulators
Computer-based, full- and part-task simulators are proliferating worldwide as ship-bridge simulation becomes affordable and effective. The growth is technology-driven: smaller, faster computers with greater memory made it practical to simulate complex hydrodynamic models over realistic visual scenes at reasonable cost. Early cartoon-like presentations have evolved into detailed, visually accurate scenes with complex models and multiple meeting and crossing vessels, and ahead-view-only screens have grown into 240- to 360-degree presentations that usually include a view aft, making them useful for pilots and deck officers alike.
8.1 Part-Task vs. Full-Task Simulators
There are two levels of computer simulator, defined by how complete the simulation is.
| Level | What it presents | Intended use |
|---|---|---|
| Part-task simulator | A limited number of features, typically one or two systems. | Training in a specific task — radar, rules of the road, ARPA, or cargo systems — where a full bridge is unnecessary and too costly. |
| Full-task (full-mission) simulator | A complete environment: a full ship's bridge with navigation equipment, radar, steering stand, communications, engine control, and every other wheelhouse system (or a complete engine control room). | A realistic, real-time scenario for the full range of routine and emergency bridge-watch tasks. |
8.2 How a Full-Task Simulator Is Built
All full-task simulators share a common background. Each begins with a mathematical model developed from data collected in shallow-water tests and sea trials of the class and type of ship being simulated. The hydrodynamicist supplies ship data to programmers, who create a visual presentation re-creating vessel motion and the hydrodynamic and environmental effects. Experienced pilots then spend many hours with the programmer and hydrodynamicist tailoring the model — modifying the data-based presentation until it "feels" to the shiphandler like the class of ship being modeled. This tailoring is controversial and admittedly unscientific, but with present data it seems necessary to blend the mariner's intuitive judgment with the theoretical model to reach a sufficiently accurate simulation.
The simulator's bridge should re-create the shipboard environment as far as possible — most facilities include a chart room, passageways, and the usual instruments. The visual presentation should give at least a 240-degree field of visibility, since shiphandlers depend as much on a view aft (or abaft the beam) as ahead in close-quarters work; a greater arc is desirable in very close quarters, and a view astern is now available in a few simulators for docking and undocking. Effects inherent to the ship — steering, engine response ahead and astern, backing, twisting, trim, draft, and directional stability — are in the ship's program, while shallow-water effects, bank and intership action, and external forces (tugs, wind, current) are overlaid, all upon a representation of the port with its visual cues, buoys, and sounds.
8.3 What Matters to the User
The technique used to generate the visual presentation matters more to the operator than to the student. The simulator user cares about the model's accuracy over a full range of maneuvers ahead and astern, the fidelity of the visual scene, the arc of visibility, how accurately external forces (wind, current, bank, shallow water, intership, tugs, anchors) are re-created, and how well the bridge environment is reproduced. Academics tend to feel detail matters less than application, while mariners — the users — contend realism is needed to make the simulation believable; as computing power rises and costs fall, the debate will likely become moot.
9. Comparison of Model and Computer Simulators
Independent of their operational differences, each type has practical advantages and disadvantages.
| Factor | Model-based | Computer-based |
|---|---|---|
| Location | Needs several acres and a natural or man-made lake — may force an inconvenient, expensive site. | Can be set up almost anywhere; a few rooms suffice, though equipment and software are costly to buy, maintain, and upgrade. |
| Weather | Affected by weather; severe winters and rainy days cut usable time. | Used year-round, independent of weather. |
| Teacher-to-student ratio | Very low (instructor rides with one or two for days) — expensive. | Only marginally better — no significant advantage either way. |
| Best suited to | Subtleties of shiphandling: hydrodynamic effects, external forces, anchor work, behavior ahead and astern in very close waters — pilots tend to prefer it. | Specific ports and a familiar bridge setting for bridge operations, navigation, and rules of the road — deck officers tend to prefer it. |
The differences tend to balance out, so the real question is which type best teaches a given subject. As a generalization, the ship-model simulator has the edge for the subtleties of shiphandling, while the computer-driven bridge simulator is better for the other aspects of a deck officer's or pilot's work. The best facilities use both to teach the aspects for which each is most suitable.
10. Tools of Simulator Instruction and Validation
Modern simulators create an environment where performance can be demonstrated, measured, and replayed, so recording equipment is essential. Simulator recordings give an active, dynamic measure of performance, replacing the passive pass-fail written tests of the traditional classroom.
| # | Tool used to record performance and behavior |
|---|---|
| 1 | "X-Y" or similar plotters reproducing a vessel's track and heading. |
| 2 | Computer- or printer-generated graphs and tables of speed, engine and helm orders, rate of turn, and related data versus time. |
| 3 | Simulator playback capability, to re-create situations and performance for selected times. |
| 4 | Audio recording of the pilot's or deck officer's orders and discussions. |
| 5 | Video recording of participants' actions and use of equipment. |
These records are used in the debriefing to compare performance with past sessions and accepted standards; skills are mastered through measured performance, review, and repetition. Be critical of yourself and open-minded, or subsequent sessions will only reinforce old, improper habits.
10.1 Simulator Validation
A simulator is of little use if the information presented is inaccurate — incorrect or misleading information is worse than useless: it can be dangerous. The process of evaluating the accuracy of the simulation is called validation. Studies are ongoing in several countries, but the criteria remain nebulous as users try to catch up with fast-changing technology. Validation grows more important as simulators gain acceptance for required training, testing, and licensing, and as companies use them to evaluate mates and masters for promotion and retention.
11. The Simulator Instructor
The instructor is the second and most important component of the simulator package. It is easy to overlook the instructor amid the bells, whistles, and flashing lights, but the simulator is only a sophisticated tool used by an experienced mariner with the aptitude and training to teach. An evolving, internationally accepted standard requires very skilled mariners as instructors — experienced pilots, master mariners, or maritime professionals with in-depth experience in the maneuvers taught — not a third mate waiting for a job or a retired officer with two years aboard military ships unlike today's large, underpowered deep-draft merchant ships. The best instructors also have specialized training in adult education and in using simulation effectively.
When very specialized training is offered, a facility may use a team concept: one instructor trained in teaching with simulators and a second who is a current professional in the specialty. Poor instruction only perpetuates the very mistakes the mate, master, or pilot came to overcome. Facilities now offer "train the trainer" courses, and governing bodies and international organizations set accreditation standards for instructors, facilities, and courses.
11.1 Degree of Instructor Involvement
There are two schools of thought on how involved the instructor should be. Some hold the instructor should be on the bridge, actively guiding the shiphandler through each maneuver so it is performed correctly. Others — the prevailing view, helped by today's excellent measuring equipment — hold the instructor should sit at a separate console, letting students make mistakes and work at their own pace, after which a detailed debriefing critiques the work from the records. Maritime academies commonly combine classroom training (instructor present and active) with independent runs observed from the console, followed by a debrief with instructors and peers.
12. The Simulator Curriculum for Deck Officers
The curriculum is the third component of an effective program. On the job, deck officers rarely get enough closely supervised shiphandling practice, and because shipboard work is largely solitary, bad habits can persist for a whole career with no one to point them out. The simulator is valuable if it does no more than provide a briefing-and-debriefing forum with peers under experienced shipmasters whose only obligation is to teach.
12.1 Realistic Scenarios, Not Video Games
Detailed scenarios reflecting real situations should be the basis of instruction, not a rote lesson. Plan a detailed scenario including all the navigation, radio and intraship communications, watch reliefs, and routine events of the evolution being practiced. Scenarios that closely track real work are more effective than impossible ones that degrade the session to the level of a video game; avoid overdone, no-win problems, but include all the work a shiphandler does during the same evolution aboard ship so the workload and priorities are realistic. Ideally, difficulty increases at the student's pace until realistic limits — not the computer's limits — are reached.
12.2 Minimum Subjects Covered
Subjects vary with the program — a third mate needs different material from a master preparing for a VLCC — but as a minimum the program should include: general maneuvering characteristics; basic maneuvers from the master's trials; the Williamson Turn to show steering characteristics; watchkeeping in close meeting and crossing situations (give-way and stand-on), stressing the round-turn maneuver; arriving at a pilot station and making a lee in all weather; making a lee to launch a lifeboat or recover a person from the water; narrow-channel work and stopping a ship in minimum time with good control; use of tugs in channels and while docking and undocking; response to machinery failures, own and on approaching ships; handling a ship with sternway, with and without strong winds; comparison of high-sided versus low-freeboard ships in strong winds; bank suction, intership action, and strong river currents where the simulator allows; and proper communication by sound signals, lights, and radio, limited only to necessary information.
Insist on proper procedures for every task and teach the full range of work — navigation, rules of the road, bridge organization, bridge resource management, command presence, decision-making, leadership, and voyage planning — not just shiphandling, since all of it impacts shiphandling. Use the simulator's full capability so the mariner practices in as close to a real-world environment as possible. Plan exercises under progressively worsening weather, incorporate several lessons into one passage from sea to dock, and repeat the same work at night, since the same jobs look different in the dark. After several days the reluctance to maneuver should be gone.
13. The Simulator Curriculum for Pilots
Unlike deck officers, pilots have no trouble accumulating shipboard experience — they are aboard ships in pilot waters, maneuvering at all hours under all conditions, training aboard the ultimate ship simulator, the ship, and that training is free. Simulators, in their present state, do not give pilots the sense of depth and distance or the subtle cues needed to master close-quarters shiphandling; they are effective tools to enhance pilot skills but do not replace the ship for much pilot training, nor the traditional apprenticeship that has served pilots so well. They are nonetheless useful for theory and basic techniques (including emergencies), bridge resource management, familiarization with unusual ship types, a forum to compare techniques with peers, radar/ARPA/navigation/communications updates, and port-development studies.
13.1 Tailoring Training to the Pilot
Because piloting is inherently port-specific and very specialized, definitive training must be developed with the pilots' association for the port simulated. Apprentice pilots must use the ship's features and equipment as fully as a third mate does, not just shiphandling, and scenarios should cover all aspects of a passage — challenging but realistic, "a job to be done rather than a game to be won." Spend time on hydrodynamics and the theory of ship behavior, so pilots understand why ships behave as they do and can anticipate rather than merely react. Have pilots role-play as master to appreciate the pilot-master relationship, broaden them with larger and different ship types, and use recording and replay for self-analysis and peer critique of shiphandling, bridge demeanor, and resource management — even skilled pilots discover they give unnecessary orders or show stress that tenses the bridge.
13.2 Communication and Funding
Bridge operations and resource management grow harder for pilots working with multicultural crews without preparation. Pilots insist that a simple requirement to communicate in a common tongue — usually English — would do more for safety than a wheelhouse of new instruments or a volume of regulations. Training should include vessel-specific exercises for senior pilots and nonspecific exercises for less experienced pilots learning the basics over their own route. Pilots also use simulators as a forum to transfer knowledge between ports — valuable because piloting is a solitary job with little peer contact. Pilots attend simulators at their own expense, which shows they see the value; because the equipment is expensive, the author proposes a nationally uniform training surcharge on all pilotage fees, retained by each association, so even the smallest can afford training paid for by its beneficiary — the shipowner.
14. The Three Steps of Simulator Training
As noted, there are three steps: a briefing session where theory and the exercise outline are discussed in the classroom; the simulator exercise itself; and a debriefing session to review performance. Training time divides about evenly among the three, so only roughly a third is actually spent on the bridge simulator — logical, since without intensive instruction and evaluation the user would only reinforce weak or improper habits.
14.1 Briefing and Debriefing
Before each period, time must be allotted for a classroom briefing to discuss the theory and hydrodynamics of each problem and plan the passage from charts and tide tables — the more carefully planned, the more beneficial the run. After the exercise comes a lengthy, carefully moderated debriefing where bridge work is reviewed and each person critiqued. Most of the learning happens here, as users are led to look critically at their work using reruns and video, audio, and chart records — without it, the simulator becomes a high-priced video game. It is surprising how often mistakes missed during the run are seized on in the debriefing; even the most experienced comment on habits they never realized they had, and this peer-to-peer review especially helps senior pilots and masters who rarely compare techniques.
14.2 The Future of Simulators
Simulation is a developing field, each generation offering more accurate, more detailed presentations on faster, cheaper, smaller computers. Several firms build small desktop simulators for use aboard ship — useful for rules of the road, ARPA, radar, and basic navigation — but the dream of a true desktop shiphandling simulator has been elusive: shiphandling is an applied art, and the restricted arc of visibility, lack of depth of field, and plan-view presentation limit such equipment, so shiphandlers should place little faith in skills practiced on them for now. Ironically, the video-game industry's drive for immersive virtual reality will likely deliver the greatest advances. Research is needed on the human side of simulation — particularly the degree to which simulator training transfers to work aboard ship — and on ship behavior in shallow water, where the scarcity of real data still leaves much of current models theoretical and extrapolated from deep-water trials.
14.3 Testing, Evaluation, and Sea-Time Credit
Computers will be used more for assessments and license exams as better criteria develop; the STAR Center, for example, produced criteria proven useful for evaluating state pilots before license renewal. Simulators already test performance-based skills — applied rules of the road, conning, and officer-of-the-watch work in fog and heavy traffic — and the ability to evaluate how a mariner prioritizes tasks under stress is a major step beyond written multiple-choice exams that test memorization. The IMO recommends performance-based testing over knowledge-based testing, and the policy of pilots evaluating pilots (as in the Alaskan Pilot Evaluation Program) is key, since there are no hard right-or-wrong answers and experienced peers must judge performance.
Simulation has matured into a widely used, effective tool for teaching basic shiphandling and other bridge skills. Its place in maritime training is in flux, but there is no doubt it will play an increasing part in the education and testing of mariners and other high-skill professionals.