Supertanker School

A maritime academy is training skippers to pilot the largest ships on the high seas, tankers and large container ships in model boats. The new manned model ship handling centre at Timsbury Lake, in Hampshire has recently opened at a cost of nearly 3 million pounds.

The site itself is ideal, it is sheltered, the right depth and is not particularly visible giving the mariners the privacy their need to concentrate on their manoeuvres’.

Here, apprentice through to professional mariners and masters are taught the art of handling ships and massive oil tankers in a fleet of miniature supertankers. The centre is one of only 5 facilities around the globe that do this simulation with models and its courses attract participants from as far afield as Australia and Hawaii. It is perhaps not so surprising this academy is based in the UK since shipping has always been a big part of UK industry, especially as some 95% of our import/exports come by sea.

Professional mariners partake in many courses over their career to gain and maintain their licence. Although some are initially a little sceptical when first introduced to the models, they often maintain at the end of the course that it’s the best course they’ve ever done. Pilots from some countries such as the US, come back every 5 years to comply with a state requirement.

The Centre has 7 scale model vessels, which can represent 9 different vessels and the 30ft models are replicas of full-size ships approximately 1:25 or 1:40 scale models, which cost up to £150.000 to build. They are electrically powered and run for 1 week without recharging. Gordon Maxwell (in the footage) is sitting in a twin-screw shuttle tanker built for an oil company to specifically train their people. The model has exactly the same controls as the real ship and has the correct power to weight ratio as its full-sized counterpart. Since it is designed to stop in a scale distance of what the real ship will do, students find it better than practising in a simulator. As well as skills such as Berthing and other manoeuvres, they hone their skills in dealing with potentially dangerous situations such as if one or more engine stops. The courses are operated on the 9-acre lake offering a variety of berths, basins and channels, including a canal. Different port scenarios can be built using floating pontoons. Another advantage over is simulator is that the models respond to the natural and somewhat unpredictable hydrodynamics which are not easily replicated in a computer-based simulator. Finally, because of the scaling factors of the models, 5 times as many manoeuvres can be carried out on a model as opposed to a bridge simulator, or the real ship.

By steering them on a purpose-built lake, students can practise manoeuvres without risking the lives of other mariners. Indeed many of the real super containers and tankers cost some 300 million dollars so the pilot error is a risk worth minimising. Their aim is to prevent disasters as whilst the cost of ships and their cargoes are enormous you can multiply that by 100 if you have a major spillage, indeed even a small incident could cost 1 million dollars. The Warsash Maritime Academy is a proper faculty of the Southampton Solent University. The simulation courses are on average 5 days duration and cost £5,500 per person.