Sim meets life

Simulated packages are evolving at quite a rate: it is almost matched by the number ways they are now inserting themselves into port operations.

Take the Port of Itajai in Brazil. After a flood caused the harbour to silt up, it wasn’t just the port that suffered from the impact of losing navigation; the whole community surrounding the port also started to struggle.

However, even with the return of the depth through dredging work, it’s not possible to just “turn on” the port’s containership handling capability again as if flipping a switch. James Norwood of BMT Argoss explains that the latest bathymetry and hydrodynamic information was incorporated into a simulation along with data to represent the port’s tug fleet, and this was used to give the pilots a refresher course on handling the larger ships.

But, it went much further: “The PC Rembrandt simulation allowed the port personnel to experiment with manoeuvres not tried before, as well as pushing the window in terms of tides and current states, adding in variations such as day and night scenarios. This meant the port could re-evaluate its operational parameters”, explains Mr Norwood.

In this way, simulation meets port feasibility studies at a fairly early stage. Mr Norwood explains that another Brazilian port, Paranagua also benefited from the simulation program.

The port is expanding: at present it is handling vessels of 300m, with 6,500 teu on board. However, while the ships they want to attract measure only 50m longer they have a much bigger - 11,000 teu - capacity. Mr Norwood adds: “This sort of thing is quite difficult for pilots to assess by themselves because a new vessel may not look so different to the majority already handled.”

For example, the port usually employs two ‘lead’ tugs but the simulation showed that by adding an aft tug in escort mode, you gain the needed control of these larger vessels at slow speeds.

Mr Norwood explains: “What isn’t always recognised is that manoeuvring characteristics change vastly with the upsizing of vessels. There are a number of things to take into account with these larger ships. For example, you have to look at wind conditions on the freeboard, and there is a speed to wind balance to be negotiated.”

He adds that with a deep draught vessel, if you have less than 10% of the draught under the keel, you have to watch your speed because you can engender something called “squat”. This means if you go too fast the ship will sit lower in the water due to the creation of low pressure zones under the hull – with the consequent possibility of grounding.

Likewise, although you may have a deep channel, if much shallower water exists either side, the high pressure areas caused by the vessels bow can cause shear effects, forcing the vessel out of the channel if left unchecked.

So, simulations have their advantages in port development work. Mr Norwood says: “During simulations at one port, for example, we found vessels were likely to struggle in getting off the berth. The answer was to either realign the berth to the prevailing wind conditions, or use more tugs – the choice is always the port’s call.”

Looking at training from a completely different point of view, VSTEP has broken through to the ports sector from the ranks of the gaming industry, and now has a number of different port training programmes to its name. Odd as this might sound at first, it has meant the company has been able to take advantage of the sophistication that is key to much of the alternate reality being demanded – and fashioned - by gaming enthusiasts.

Pjotr van Schothorst, VSTEP’s technical director explains that, for example, its bulk crane application started out life as an added-extra to a ship simulator game. “Then we found we had real interest from professionals - including actual crane drivers...”

It was shortly after this that the company was asked for a tailored bulk loading version. “This crane simulation was made especially for EMO, who run a large European dry bulk facility: obviously it needed more development and quite a different action to control it, but its origins were in the game.”

The other side to the equation is, says Mr van Schothorst, that expensive simulators are now going out of fashion. “Yes, they mimic reality extremely well, but they are also extremely expensive - not only to purchase but to maintain.” He explains that these simulators have developed as far as having platforms that move in three directions, plus things like hemispherical surround-screens.

“Actually some of the time they may be a victim of their own reality,” says Mr van Schothorst. “I’ve heard of trainees making a sudden move with the simulator and the actual shock – real shock – gets translated into the 3D mount, the action jarring the projectors and causing them to misalign, so the simulator breaks down. It’s a pretty big downside to going ‘as real as it gets’.”

Further, these units can cost millions of Euros – and a port really can’t afford that many of them.

VSTEP pitches their training “more toward the middle of the market”, which gives the trainers the basics of a couple of computers, flat screen projectors or large LCD monitors, plus sound vibrations from a subwoofer which change with the ‘thrust’ from the engines.

“It’s really all you want for most training - you don’t really need too much sophistication as much of the effect of movement can simply be given by a changing horizon,” he adds. “It’s the beginning of a whole new – and much cheaper - generation of training products, and this means they will be available to more personnel.”

Part of the Nautis package, tug training usually takes place via two simulators standing side by side so the trainer or trainee can play either side, tug or ships master, and multiple tug operations can be handled as well – an important point for tug training.

“It is a good set-up for the trainees to sharpen their communication skills, because we have found that communication between a group can very easily go wrong.”

RescueSim is another of VSTEP’s products, and this he says has generated a lot of interest, since you can either leave it as a generic scene or recreate a particular port environment with all its nooks and crannies, and run through the “what if” scenarios.

“The interesting thing about training for safety and rescue operations,” he explains, “is that you do try to set up things to show people what’s important, and it’s not always the thing in front of you – for example, in real life you are almost always distracted by the immediate difficulties, but actually in a rescue situation this could mean missing what’s needed to avert an impending, and possibly larger, problem.”