IAMU News No.13, October 2006

NEW $13 MILLION SIMULATOR CENTER UNDER CONSTRUCTION AT CAL MARITIME

Construction is underway on the California Maritime Academy campus, Vallejo, CA, for a brand new $13-million Simulator Center. When completed in the fall of 2007, the Center will house the Academy's existing bridge and radar simulators and add two more bridge training facilities with 360-degree projection capability, two small-vessel bridge simulators, gas turbine and liquid cargo simulators and an oil-spill/crisis management training center. The new building will also house over a dozen offices for faculty and staff involved in the school's simulator program.

According to Center Director Phil Arms, growing enrollments, coupled with expanding training requirements for licensure in deck and engineering disciplines, make the completion of the new center a real priority. "The new software we'll be using will give us additional flexibility in creating real-life exercises on all kinds of vessels in all types of conditions. The upgraded simulator software we're installing will provide new and more realistic training in the operations of tugboats and commercial workboats, including winch operations, and a wide range of towing conditions. Limiting the number of participants involved in individual simulator exercises is crucial to a quality learning experience. These additional facilities will help assure our cadets receive adequate hours of training prior to graduation and licensure."

Arms added that the Center will serve the maritime industry as well. "We're a key resource for extended education," he explains. "West Coast vessel officers and marine pilots must periodically renew their radar certifications and often use our simulator facilities for testing exercises."

"We're also a designated Pisces-2 Hazardous Spill Simulator operations facility. Not only can we take our simulator to actual spills to help guide the allocation of resources in the event of a mishap, but we can provide very realistic drills for everyone involved in a potential spill from the Incident Commander to those involved in communications and media relations. The entire center design allows us to interlink all of our simulators and our communications to create very detailed scenarios for drills at new levels of realism. This will enable us to conduct crisis training programs and spill simulation exercises on a larger scale than ever before for more effective training and review."