In the month of World Maritime Day, ECDIS Ltd has been working to inspire the local younger generation and share the impact of the shipping industry.

[Whiteley, Hampshire September 2015] 13^th Eastleigh Sea Scouts visited ECDIS Ltd HQ this month for an afternoon of activities and learning with the UK’s largest privately owned training centre in the UK.

The group of Sea Scouts were firstly tasked with Bridge Team Management in the Fairpoint Sherpa Ocean-going Tug. Working together, they had to use the equipment and safely enter port at Dover avoiding collisions and grounding. This all took place in ECDIS Ltd’s Full Mission Bridge simulator.

The Sea Scouts also took part in a presentation with ex-serviceman and ECDIS Ltd’s own HELM and Advanced Course Manager Richard ‘Joe’ Sloly, discussing how ECDIS Ltd play their part in the training and simulation sector and the value behind what they do. The discussion also highlighted the opportunities and potential that the Scouts, as digital natives, would have and where the future of the shipping industry may lie.

The evening finished with healthy competition in the form of a carting style game played on ECDIS Ltd’s console simulators. Racing speed boats around the race track which was created by ECDIS Ltd’s 3D artists and design team, originally used for ECDIS Ltd’s Corporate Team Building Day service.

Samantha Hucklesby, Head of Marketing at ECDIS Ltd said “As ECDIS Ltd has grown, it has always been important as a company to work with local community projects and broaden their expectations; not only in regards to the maritime industry, but from a business point of view. It is important to engage them also as young entrepreneurs, and make them think about what they can achieve with enough knowledge and specialism in a certain field. The theme for this year’s World Maritime Day supports everything ECDIS Ltd is about, and inviting the Sea Scouts was an excellent way to recognise it and give back.”

Simon Powell, Operations Director at Marine South East Ltd and Sailing Instructor for the Sea Scouts added… “’Through my position at Marine South East, a marine and maritime cluster based in Southampton, I am aware of the vast range of innovative, exciting, high growth, world-class companies and research organisations active in the sector; so I was delighted on receiving the invitation from ECDIS Ltd for the Sea Scout group to give them an insight into the fascinating world of ship bridge simulators and ECDIS systems. As a father of 14 and 9 year old girls, I have become aware that without enough information and experience, children are ill-equipped to make good educational and career choices in an ever more competitive world.  I also observe that many companies struggle to recruit enough suitably qualified and motivated people. ECDIS Ltd MD, Mark Broster, was keen to welcome the Scouts and ECDIS Ltd organised an excellent visit.  Twenty two Scouts visited and were given a privileged tour of the facilities. In the bridge simulator they got to steer huge ships in and out of Dover in a storm, race and crash power boats and a few managed to fill their pockets with sweets!   A well as having lots of fun the kids learnt a great deal and some may be inspired to pursue maritime careers.  On the drive home one 13 year old girl said she would like to work at ECDIS Ltd so you never know…”

With the introduction and approval of the new Instructor Training IMO course, ECDIS Ltd now offers one of the most extensive training portfolios across the Deck and Navigation spectrum.

[Whiteley, Hampshire September 2015] ECDIS Ltd is the only private training academy to offer 30 different courses, covering so much more than just ECDIS.

ECDIS Ltd’s course portfolio has significantly grown and now, with the completion and MCA approval of the latest IMO 6.09 Instructor Training advanced course, ECDIS Ltd teaches 30 deck and navigation courses.

Taking a snapshot into a typical training schedule, ECDIS Ltd has delivered Bridge Team Management, Bridge Resource Management, HELM, ECDIS Generic and Type Specific on Sperry, Transas and Furuno, the 6.09 Instructor Training and also the Inspectors Course; all from our facility near Southampton as well as Singapore and all within the last 3 weeks.

Other courses that are available are: Navigational Audits & Investigations, Anti Piracy Maritime Security, Rule of the Road, NEBOSH, MIST, Helmsman Training, Bridge Watch Keeping & Collision Avoidance, WECDIS and Type Specific ECDIS also for Kelvin Hughes, OSI and JRC and more.

Mark Broster, MD at ECDIS Ltd said “A lot of people still believe that we only offer the 5 Day ECDIS Generic course, and while this is how ECDIS Ltd started, we have become so much more. We now offer more deck & navigation courses week in, week out than anyone else, as well as branching out into simulator building and 3D creation of ports and vessels, all from our facility in Fareham. It’s fantastic.”

ECDIS Ltd’s Training & Production Manager, Robyn Harrigan, points out “Training is our everyday operation, and we’ll continue to improve and add to our training portfolio, but it actually counts for just 2.4% of ECDIS Ltd’s turn over. Utilising our expertise has meant we have been able to also offer consultancy, advice, guidance and support on e-navigation, simulation and training to other members and organisations within our industry.”

To view all of the courses and services that ECDIS Ltd delivers, please visit https://www.ecdis.org/maritime-courses/ & https://www.ecdis.org/services

With the introduction and approval of the new Instructor Training IMO course, ECDIS Ltd now offers one of the most extensive training portfolios across the Deck and Navigation spectrum.

[Whiteley, Hampshire September 2015] ECDIS Ltd is the only private training academy to offer 30 different courses, covering so much more than just ECDIS.

ECDIS Ltd’s course portfolio has significantly grown and now, with the completion and MCA approval of the latest IMO 6.09 Instructor Training advanced course, ECDIS Ltd teaches 30 deck and navigation courses.

Taking a snapshot into a typical training schedule, ECDIS Ltd has delivered Bridge Team Management, Bridge Resource Management, HELM, ECDIS Generic and Type Specific on Sperry, Transas and Furuno, the 6.09 Instructor Training and also the Inspectors Course; all from our facility near Southampton as well as Singapore and all within the last 3 weeks.

Other courses that are available are: Navigational Audits & Investigations, Anti Piracy Maritime Security, Rule of the Road, NEBOSH, MIST, Helmsman Training, Bridge Watch Keeping & Collision Avoidance, WECDIS and Type Specific ECDIS also for Kelvin Hughes, OSI and JRC and more.

Mark Broster, MD at ECDIS Ltd said “A lot of people still believe that we only offer the 5 Day ECDIS Generic course, and while this is how ECDIS Ltd started, we have become so much more. We now offer more deck & navigation courses week in, week out than anyone else, as well as branching out into simulator building and 3D creation of ports and vessels, all from our facility in Fareham. It’s fantastic.”

ECDIS Ltd’s Training & Production Manager, Robyn Harrigan, points out “Training is our everyday operation, and we’ll continue to improve and add to our training portfolio, but it actually counts for just 2.4% of ECDIS Ltd’s turn over. Utilising our expertise has meant we have been able to also offer consultancy, advice, guidance and support on e-navigation, simulation and training to other members and organisations within our industry.”

To view all of the courses and services that ECDIS Ltd delivers, please visit http://www.ecdis.org/maritime-courses/ & http://www.ecdis.org/services

Swire Pacific Offshore, Singapore has selected UK training company ECDIS Ltd, to fulfil in-house training requirements.

[Whiteley, Hampshire May 2015] Swire Pacific Offshore Operations (Pte) Ltd (SPO) has appointed ECDIS Ltd as the preferred training provider to conduct a series of training courses over a two-year period.

The five-day generic ECDIS course and the required type-specific ECDIS training are provided with the approval of Singapore’s maritime regulatory authority, Maritime Authority of Singapore (MPA.)

Noel Leith, Training Centre Manager of SMTC, Swire Pacific Offshore Operations (Pte) Ltd says, “It has been a pleasure working with ECDIS Ltd who made the training process very easy and convenient, delivering flag approved training at our own location. We have currently completed the sixth training course provided by ECDIS Ltd and have received excellent feedback.”

ECDIS Ltd will also use Swire Marine Training Centre’s (SMTC) world-class training facility as a third party service provider to conduct the worldwide recognised and approved Generic ECDIS course for customers and seafarers on a monthly basis.

Mark Broster, Managing Director at ECDIS Ltd says, “Partnering with Swire Pacific Offshore is a huge leap for ECDIS Ltd and it has been a pleasure to work with the professional team at STMC and to provide training to their employees. We are excited to be able to use their world-class training facility in Singapore to extend our reach and training capabilities across the world.”

Swire Pacific Offshore, Singapore has selected UK training company ECDIS Ltd, to fulfil in-house training requirements.

[Whiteley, Hampshire May 2015] Swire Pacific Offshore Operations (Pte) Ltd (SPO) has appointed ECDIS Ltd as the preferred training provider to conduct a series of training courses over a two-year period.

The five-day generic ECDIS course and the required type-specific ECDIS training are provided with the approval of Singapore’s maritime regulatory authority, Maritime Authority of Singapore (MPA.)

Noel Leith, Training Centre Manager of SMTC, Swire Pacific Offshore Operations (Pte) Ltd says, “It has been a pleasure working with ECDIS Ltd who made the training process very easy and convenient, delivering flag approved training at our own location. We have currently completed the sixth training course provided by ECDIS Ltd and have received excellent feedback.”

ECDIS Ltd will also use Swire Marine Training Centre’s (SMTC) world-class training facility as a third party service provider to conduct the worldwide recognised and approved Generic ECDIS course for customers and seafarers on a monthly basis.

Mark Broster, Managing Director at ECDIS Ltd says, “Partnering with Swire Pacific Offshore is a huge leap for ECDIS Ltd and it has been a pleasure to work with the professional team at STMC and to provide training to their employees. We are excited to be able to use their world-class training facility in Singapore to extend our reach and training capabilities across the world.”

Health and welfare matter afloat

Seafarers may be exposed to stresses caused by remoteness, loneliness, fatigue and other problems rarely experienced by those who work ashore. Nobody produces their best work when they are feeling off-colour, or struggling with personal problems, or trying to deal with troubles in the close confines of a ship or thousands of miles away.

The health and welfare of seafarers are not trivial matters but are closely connected to the practical matters of keeping ships and people safe and performing efficiently and well.

This is the main thrust of the latest edition of the International Maritime Human Element Bulletin Alert! which focuses on a topic that is important to everyone in the shipping industry afloat or ashore. The reader’s attention is seized by a gruesome but eminently believable account of a junior engineer, whose preoccupation with personal problems propels him into a horrible encounter with a watertight door.

In his introduction to Alert! Issue No 38, Editor David Squire notes that seafarers have to be both physically and mentally fit to cope with the demands of working and living at sea. But it would be wrong to conclude that the shipping industry has ignored matters of health and welfare – the Alert! centrespread summarises a very long list of regulations, recommendations, advice and source material which is entirely devoted to health, welfare and safety. So there is no excuse for suggesting that they have been sidelined!

The Bulletin includes helpful advice on the establishment of Seafarers’ Welfare Boards, an integral part of the ILO Maritime Labour Convention, 2006, which specifies that seafarers should have access to shore-based welfare facilities. Additionally, there is a concise and useful summary of the ILO Guidelines on Occupational Safety and Health. These are much more than a paper exercise, comprising the same sort of comprehensive risk-based approach for global shipping which those ashore in developed nations have long enjoyed.

Other articles in Alert! Issue No.38 include an explanation of the Sailors’ Society initiative on Wellness at Sea, which will hopefully feature in future training arrangements and takes a holistic view of seafarer health. While serious depression may be rare, it does amount to more than somebody having an off-day, and there are some helpful hints to ensure that this problem can be recognised at an early stage.

Health and welfare really matter and we need to take them very seriously indeed!

Ends

Notes to editors

The Alert! Project – launched in October 2003 – is a campaign to improve the awareness of the human element in the maritime industry. This is a Nautical Institute project, sponsored by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

Further information about the human element awareness initiative, and electronic copies of Alert! can be found at www.he-alert.org.

David Squire, FNI FCMI
The Editor
Alert!
The Nautical Institute
202 Lambeth Road
London  SE1 7LQ
United Kingdom

[email protected]

The Nautical Institute is the international representative body for maritime professionals and others with an interest in nautical matters. It provides a wide range of services to enhance the professional standing and knowledge of members who are drawn from all sectors of the maritime world.

Founded in 1972, it is a thriving international professional body, with over 40 branches worldwide and some 7,000 members in more than 110 countries.

Lloyd’s Register Foundation helps to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement and the application of research.

www.lrfoundation.org.uk

Lloyd’s Register Foundation (Reg. No. 1145988) is a Charity registered in England and Wales, and owner of the Lloyd’s Register Group. Registered Office: 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS, United Kingdom.

Tel: +44 (0)20 7709 9166

Leading navigational trainers ECDIS Ltd, have most recently utilised new simulation training technology for COLREGs teaching aids, creating a brighter way to train and assess students from their 150 major shipping company clients in the classroom.

Using the new technology via projectors, the assessors, instructors and students have the dynamic ability to continuously change the COLREGs situation, in a variety of meteorological conditions, from any aspect of any vessel i.e. port or starboard, birds eye, helm positions and free orbital. Long gone are the days of using ROR flip cards and magnetic smartie boards. This exciting and complex database of a variety of vessels and ports, enables the instructor to change everything including vessels lights, pennants and hoist shapes.

The technology behind this system is incredibly complex using an efficient physics engine for water simulation and seabed collisions, all packaged together in an easy to use drag and drop style of play. In the hands of our instructors, this is an incredibly powerful tool, giving the ability to create fresh teaching aids within minutes, demonstrated in real time.

This gives the trainees an understanding of critical situations and how the appropriate manoeuvres should look, not only from their own ship, but also how the same situation would, could and should look like from other vessels viewpoints. The trainees then take this theory from the classroom and put it into practice in the full mission bridge simulator (FMBS).

This is a seamless transition for ECDIS Ltd and the possibilities of learning are endless, especially so when it comes to simulator training.

ECDIS Ltd’s blog is back online!

Officially launched today, 20th February 2015, the new blog includes a range of articles, videos, interviews and hints & tips. Posts range from falling fuel prices and the future of marine simulation, to the events of the 3D department and the redesigning of the new website.

Make sure you never miss a thing by signing up to receive notifications of new posts!

Visit the blog at www.ecdis.org/blog
Recent Posts

What is the effect of the recent drop in oil prices on the shipping industry?

Nearly all merchant ships use oil in some form for their main engines and for generating electricity. Fuel costs are a major element of the running costs of a ship. For example over the last 6 months the price on the Rotterdam market for low sulphur 380 cst has fallen from about 630 US Dollars to in the region of 230 USD Similarly Marine Gas Oil has gone from 880 US Dollars to about 460 US Dollars. When consumption is measured is tens of tons per day the saving on a four week voyage can be considerable. This can lead to increased profitability for the shipping company and/or a reduction in freight rates which will act to boost the amount of cargo carried… Continue reading >

The Future of Marine Simulation

For many years the aviation community has embraced simulator-based training as an integral part of teaching syllabi; not as a replacement for time in a real aircraft but to augment and consolidate theory, practice procedures and to push students’ capacity to a degree perhaps not possible in a real aircraft due to the risk inherent in willingly making things go wrong in the air. Continue reading >

Redesigning The ECDIS Ltd Website

Improving the ECDIS website was one of the original priorities I had when I first started here back in April last year, although it soon became clear that we wanted to do a bit more than just improve the site and it was in August 2014 that we decided to fully redesign it. Continue reading >

Practice makes perfect

Realistic safety drills are the perfect training for survival in an unexpected emergency. Done diligently and regularly, they can save lives and help seafarers to survive whatever the unexpected may throw at them.

Nobody really enjoys emergency drills, and for those which are really worthwhile – those which are unexpected and inconvenient – there is probably an element of active dislike. But as the latest issue of the International Maritime Human Element Bulletin Alert! explains, diligent drills which drove the crew half mad ultimately saved their lives when they had to abandon ship in a hurry.

Alert! No 37 focuses on surviving the unexpected, the emergencies which raise their ugly heads in so many different guises, and examines how resources, training and procedures can help people to do the correct things almost instinctively when the chips are down.

Can new technology help in this? Alert! suggests that gaming technology, which has advanced in leaps and bounds in recent years, can help people learn from incidents without actually having to experience them. And because gaming technology means drills can be repeated constantly, seafarers can really rehearse their reactions to all manner of emergencies.

The bulletin also provides an insight into Seahealth, a Danish initiative which helps individuals get through a crisis at sea and survive traumatic events which may, in the worst case, affect the mental health of an individual. Such traumas might be more common than some think.

Other articles include a new approach to enclosed space entry, which continues to claim too many victims, in which technology is harnessed to help people make the correct decisions in what can be life or death choices. The latest thinking on maritime security is also covered, showing how prevention, preparation and practice – the three Ps – can enhance survival chances, whatever circumstances and the unexpected may produce.

The centrefold summarises the principles of survival in pictorial form – emphasising the importance of training and drills and the need for a holistic approach to safety and survival. Fire-fighting, lifesaving, personal survival, medical and first aid training, the importance of communications and search and rescue, crisis management and security training are all elements of what makes a well-prepared seafarer and an entire crew. And not for the first time, the importance of learning from other people’s mistakes and near-misses is underlined.

Ends

Notes to editors

The Alert! Project – launched in October 2003 – is a campaign to improve the awareness of the human element in the maritime industry. This is a Nautical Institute project, sponsored by the Lloyd’s Register Foundation.

Further information about the human element awareness initiative, and electronic copies of Alert! can be found at www.he-alert.org.

David Squire, FNI FCMI
The Editor
Alert!
The Nautical Institute
202 Lambeth Road
London  SE1 7LQ
United Kingdom

[email protected]

The Nautical Institute is the international representative body for maritime professionals and others with an interest in nautical matters. It provides a wide range of services to enhance the professional standing and knowledge of members who are drawn from all sectors of the maritime world.

Founded in 1972, it is a thriving international professional body, with over 40 branches worldwide and some 7,000 members in more than 110 countries.

Lloyd’s Register Foundation helps to protect life and property by supporting engineering-related education, public engagement and the application of research.

www.lrfoundation.org.uk

Lloyd’s Register Foundation (Reg. No. 1145988) is a Charity registered in England and Wales, and owner of the Lloyd’s Register Group. Registered Office: 71 Fenchurch Street, London, EC3M 4BS, United Kingdom.

Tel: +44 (0)20 7709 9166

On 12 December 2014, staff and students at the navigational training facility, ECDIS Ltd, put on their Christmassy, festive woollies all in aid of raising money for Save the Children.

As part of the Christmas jumper day, the team put on their very own bring and buy great British bake off, as well as competing in the snow sweepstake asking for small donations from staff and students throughout the day. When counting the donations at the end of the day, the team were astonished to have raised £100 all through their cakes and bakes!

The money raised from the day will help save children’s lives around the world, from Syria to Liberia, Brazil to Bangladesh.

ECDIS Ltd would like to thank all staff and students who donated throughout the day and are already looking forward to next year!

ENDS.

Notes to editors:

• For more information and pictures after the event, please contact Amy Shelton, Head of Marketing, on 01489 559 677 / [email protected]
• Christmas Jumper Day is a national fundraising event in aid of Save the Children. This year, hundreds of thousands of people up and down the country are expected to take part. Find out more at: christmasjumperday.org

Save the Children works in more than 120 countries to save children’s lives, fight for their rights and help them fulfil their potential. Find out more at:  www.savethechildren.org.uk