Teens access simulator at Cayman Maritime Week for a look at the Latest Technology in Marine Services Industry
George Town, Grand Cayman, 22nd June - Local students recently navigated their way through George Town Harbour aboard a make believe vessel, virtually making their way to dock the ship, with an eye on the marine environment and area ship traffic. They did this on a high-tech simulator used to train professional seafarers worldwide and the experience was part of a field trip to Cayman Maritime Week. The simulator was one of the highlights of the event at the Marriott Grand Cayman Beach Resort May 2 – 4 and was provided by Transas, the Gold Sponsor for the event, who are the world’s leading manufacturer of simulators used to train and certify sea specialists. The students met with the Transas team, used the simulator and followed with an enthusiastic question and answer session.
“I remember specifically, when the weather conditions on the screen were being changed and “Captain George” from Transas told us about one of his experiences in weather as stormy and, windy and rainy as the one being displayed on the screen,” said Khadejah Watt, first student from John Grey High School to try the simulator. “We talked about the radar of the machine and the function of the radar was to identify and warn the captain of any possible obstacles that may be in the range of the boat.”
Ms. Watt and her classmates also learned how radar is used at sea to avoid disaster.
“If a captain is feeling a little tired and wants to take a rest, he/she could set the radar to let’s say…2 miles,” she explains. “This is a big enough distance so that when the captain is resting and hears the warning of obstacles approaching, there is enough time to steer the boat in another direction.”
One of the students asked about the most dangerous encounters that could happen at sea, and they learned that major hazards are collisions and boat fires.
“It gave us great pleasure to show off our simulation technology to the local school children, during Cayman Maritime Week,” said Frank J. Coles, Chief Executive Officer of Transas. “The children enjoyed seeing the full capability of the simulators to show all sorts of training capabilities of the technology. We explained that maritime technology provides great career paths and the Cayman Maritime Park will provide new opportunities for them.”
Cayman Maritime Service Park, which is part of the Cayman Enterprise City (CEC) Special Economic Zone was one of the major partners of Cayman Maritime Week and arranged the field trip for the John Grey High School students. CEC officials stated that this was the kind of exposure they like to provide to students to give them insight into maritime technology and new types of careers that are starting to become available within Cayman Maritime Services Park.
Sherice Arman, Of Counsel at Maples and Calder, who is the President of WISTA Cayman Islands invited other schools to bring groups of students, and children from both Cayman Prep School and Triple C School also attended throughout the week and enjoyed testing the simulator.
“WISTA is committed to partnering with various organizations to create opportunities for youth in the Cayman Islands with in the maritime industry.” stated Arman.
The students learned that seafarers train on the Transas simulators to reach various levels of expertise, from familiarization, standard operation and watch keeping, to advanced operation, troubleshooting and ship resource management. With its high-tech simulator, Transas also showed how easily pollution can spread from one country to another and what can be done to prevent it. The company has installed more than 5,500 simulator systems in 1500 training centres in 106 countries. The systems are used for training by commercial fleets, navies and coast guards around the world.
“It was a great experience for students to view what technology exist to facilitate training in the virtual world as well as a great opportunity to gain exposure to another career that studying science provides for the future.” stated Godfrey Williams, the teacher who led up the John Grey field trip.
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