IAMU News No.12, June 2006

4. LNG Training and Competence Assessment at Warsash Maritime Centre

Alan Whitcher
MSc, Master Mariner, Senior Lecturer
Warsash Maritime Centre, Southampton Solent University

Warsash Maritime Centre is a part of Southampton Solent University and has been established for almost 60 years.

Warsash pioneered tanker training courses which were set up with the British Shipping Federation in conjunction with the oil industry in 1966. This has evolved today to include the mandatory training specified in STCW, together with a range of additional courses to meet particular requirements, such as training for LNG ships.

LNG training at Warsash is conducted in our Liquid Cargo Operations Simulator (LICOS) which was originally developed by Warsash in conjunction with a company called Ferranti back in the mid 1980s. Today through a business arrangement with MPRI (formally Ship Analytics) this simulator is sold throughout the world.

Whichever ship model is used, the training courses follow a common theme based around a voyage cycle. The week starts with an explanation of how the simulator works and a guided familiarisation exercise to ensure everyone is familiar with the location of the various parts of the cargo system. We then start from a situation where the vessel has just left dry-dock with fresh air in the cargo tanks. Each operation throughout a voyage cycle is then carried out in turn, starting with the inerting of interbarrier spaces and tanks, moving on to gassing up, cooling down, loading and so on, until we are gas-free again by Friday.

Each operation begins with a briefing and ends with a debriefing. The briefing is adapted slightly, depending on the experience of those present, but generally will cover the why and how relating to the operation in question. Reference will be made to industry guidance from the ICS Tanker Safety Guide (Liquefied Gas) and the IGC Code, 17 where relevant. The cargo equipment used for each operation is discussed during the briefing, the LNG vaporiser for gassing up etc., etc.

For those with very limited experience, the operation can be demonstrated by the instructor and then carried out by the students. When the exercise is run it is in real time. This is an important point. Any simulators that have the ability to speed up time rapidly become video games. However, in order to cover all operations in a week, there is clearly not enough time to carry out each operation in its entirety. The approach we adopt is to concentrate on the most critical area of the operation, usually the start up and completion, with each exercise lasting from one to two hours on average. A comprehensive communications system enables the instructor to take on the role of other personnel such as deck crew and jetty operators.

At the end of each exercise there is a debriefing. The instructor will have made a number of notes based on his observations. Checklists have been developed to assist with this. These observations will be discussed and the students are encouraged to discuss their experiences both on the simulator and on the real ship.

Competence Standards

There are currently two published standards for LNG competence. One by SIGTTO and one by DNV. Each standard has the same aim and each covers similar material. The significant difference between the two is that SIGTTO standard breaks the knowledge required to be competent into 8 ranks, where the DNV standard has only one level, competent or not, but is aimed primarily at senior officers. However, simple questioning cannot test the higher levels of learning, application and integration, where knowledge is recalled and used in the current situation or where knowledge is used to solve problems or predict results. Examples of this would be in the setting up and starting of an operation such as gassing up, or in a normally routine operation which has become non-routine such as discharging, with a failure of the normally available shore vapour return.

This can only be demonstrated in the real or simulated environment. It is these higher levels of learning which really demonstrate competence, and which the simulators can very effectively measure.

For a number of years Warsash has been involved in the assessment of competence for FPSO control room operators. We have built on this experience and have recently been accredited by DNV as an assessment centre against their competence standard for LNG.

For the DNV standard, competence assessment is measured in two parts. The first part determines underpinning knowledge, the lower levels of learning, and is achieved by multiple-choice assessment, conducted online. Fifty multiple-choice questions must be answered within a time limit. The questions are randomly chosen from a pool, but the subject areas are weighted in the standard. So there will always be a certain percentage of questions relating to regulations, and a certain percentage to physics, for example. The result of this assessment is provided immediately upon completion.

The second part of the assessment tests the deeper levels of learning, application and integration. This is done by conducting four randomly chosen cargo operations which must cover operation on both membrane and spherical vessels in the simulator. For each operation, and there are currently 54 to choose from - ranging from simple to relatively complex - there is a checklist of steps which must be conducted, linked directly to the competence standard. By having a checklist approach for all test centres, the process is kept as objective and consistent as possible.

The checklist approach helps to maintain objectivity, but the assessor still has to make a judgement, so at the end of each exercise there is a brief oral question session. There is a list of suggested open questions for each exercise from which a few questions could be chosen, or more often a question will be asked based on the observed performance.

These questions are intended to help determine the level of underpinning knowledge associated with the observed actions and eliminate errors which may be related to a lack of familiarity with the simulator, rather than a lack of competence. At the end of this, the assessor should be able to make a judgement as to whether the candidate is competent or not.