Simulation of incidents during deck officers training: collision between OSV and bulk carrier

Continuous professional development is one of the key elements that contributes to maintaining an adequate level of safety in high-risk industries such as shipping. At the same time, about half of all major асcidents in this industry are related to navigational incidents: collisions, contacts with a pier, and groundings. Each major accident is preceded by the so-called “chain of errors.” Early recognition and “extraction” of links from the “chain” reduces the likelihood of a navigational accident. However, navigational process participants should be able to recognize a dangerously developing situation and take timely preventive measures. Thus, recognizing a dangerous situation is a skill that needs to be developed. One of the effective methods for developing the above skill is to study previously occurred emergency situations. This article highlights the subject of deck officers training based on navigation incidents. In particular, the collision of the tug “Neftegaz-67” and the bulk carrier “Yao Hai” was recreated on a navigation simulator and suggested to deck officers in various versions without a preliminary description of the circumstances of the accident or warning that anything unusual could happen in the exercise. Versions of tasks: the trainee controls the tug, all other vessels move along a given trajectory; the trainee controls the bulk carrier, the tug makes a sharp maneuver to the left immediately before the turn; trainees operate a tug and bulk carrier in multi-player mode. As the post-analysis of exercises showed, the largest number of collisions occurred in the second version, where the trainee controls the bulk carrier. At the same time, there was a clear correlation between the number of accidents and the experience of the trainees.