Where and when did we embark on training using simulation? I believe it
would take some considerable amount of research were we to try and establish this; but I
would suggest that, with respect to merchant navy training, this happened, for all
practical purposes, shortly after the Italian passenger liner Andrea Doria collided with a
similar ship under the Swedish flag, the Stockholm, in 1956. As a result of the accident,
the Andrea Doria sank with some loss of life. The collision took place in dense fog
although both ships were equipped with radar and were in fact using it.
The irony of the situation was that the collision might, in all
likelihood, not have happened, had the ships not navigated under radar. This was not the
first time that ships collided whilst navigating under radar, nor was it the last time and
these kinds of accidents came to be known as "radar-assisted collisions".
The public outcry which followed the Stockholm-Andrea Doria collision
contributed to maritime administrations turning their attention to specialized radar
training more seriously.
Long serving masters and experienced navigating officers were called
back to school to receive the necessary training. At first, this kind of training took the
form of paper exercises on radar observer courses but, in the event, the first radar
simulators for use by the merchant navy saw the light of the day and radar simulator
training became a standard teaching item in maritime training institutes.
However, developments did not stop there. The increase in the size of
ships, the designing of more sophisticated engine rooms, the introduction of specialized
ships such as offshore vessels, all pointed to the need that classical schoolroom training
should be augmented by skill training on simulators. The spectacular development of
computers gave an impetus to this development. Computer-based skills training now covers
such areas as bridge management, ship manoeuvring, the loading and unloading of tankers
and other bulk ships, engine room watchkeeping and, still continuing in increasing
sophistication, collision avoidance by radar.
Even so, when in 1978 the International Convention on Standards of
Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (the STCW Convention) was adopted,
no allowance or reference as such was made to simulator training, although simulator
training had become an acceptable and routine process in many maritime training
institutes.
