SSG No 4 - Shipgaz

waters on the cargo ships from Royal Arctic
Line, which serve the ports in Greenland
all year round. His co-instructor on
the Primorsk programme, Ken Vøge,
learned his skills on the Danish Navy
patrol ship sailing in Greenlandic waters
for fishery inspection and sovereignty
keeping.
You have to use the ice
as part of the ship.
“Sailing on the patrol ships was much
more educating than sailing on a cargo
ship”, says Ken Vøge. “Patrol ships go into
much more complicated waters than normal
ships”.
Despite this vast knowledge of ice sailing,
the instructors have called in two other colleagues
from Royal Arctic Line to act as coinstructors
and lecturers during the courses.
The actual training goes on in one of
three simulators situated at Marstal Navigationsskole.
50 computers, enabling the
instructors to put in all sorts of parameters
on a specific sailing to the port of Primorsk,
support the simulator.
“Looking at Primorsk, it is really a simple
place to approach”, explains Bjørn Kay.
“There is nothing apart from a jetty built
out in the deep water, several hundred
metres from the shore. But it is the weather
conditions with full ice for long periods
that raise the requirements for training
beforehand”.
The computer programme is built to be
changed on a day-to-day basis, which
means that the instructor can go online to
today’s ice map on the Internet and use
this as a parameter for today’s sailing in the
simulator.
Fatal manoeuvre
It is rather complicated to explain all the
factors that make sailing in ice something
that needs more attention than sailing in
soft water.
“You have to use the ice as part of the
ship”, says Bjørn Kay. “Instead of using the
engine to stop the ship you must learn to
use the ice. Making a reverse manoeuvre
with the propeller can be fatal as the propeller
could pump ice into the propeller
causing damage and offhire. So one has to
be careful with this kind of engine
manoeuvring”.
The course is set up to support safe sailing
for a portfolio of 16 new tankers under
construction in China for commercial
management at Dampskibsselskabet Torm
in København. The first of the tankers was
the Gotland Carolina, owned by Gotlandsbolaget
AB in Slite, but flying the Danish
flag and managed by Torm.
The tanker fleet will be owned by four
owners, Gotlandsbolaget, D/S Torm, Italian
LGR-Group and the Russian Prisco. All
units will be sister ships with a capacity of
53,483 cubic metres at 53,160 DWT. The
length will be 183 metres, width 32.2
metres and draft 13.5 metres. They will all
be built to Ice Class 1A under Det Norske
Veritas.
Other ships
Ice sailing to Primorsk is only one of several
courses done by the team at Marstal. In
the years before, the simulators were used
for several other ship types. Amongst them
is the DFDS Flowerclass ro-ro (the Tor
Magnolia and sisters). Before they were
inaugurated most of the mariners trained at
Marstal, approaching Göteborg as well as
locks at Immingham.
There were some parameters in the
weather conditions that were tested in the
BENT MIKKELSEN
Today’s ice conditions being put into the
computer by instructor Bjørn Kay, Marstal
Navigationsskole.
simulator. Before trials in the simulator
there was a limit of 13 metres per second in
wind speed, but after testing in the simulator
with no cost of repair to the vessel, the
wind speed limit was changed to 15 metres
per second.
“It is much cheaper to make a mistake
on our ships than in the real world”, says
Bjørn Kay. “And we can set up any ship
and any port if needed by our costumers”,
he adds.
bent mikkelsen
SCANDINAVIAN SHIPPING GAZETTE • FEBRUARY 23, 2007 21
BENT MIKKELSEN
IT & COMMUNICATIONS
The simulator consists of 50 PC’s, each with a different task in the whole picture in the
wheelhouse.