The perfect bridge for troubled waters
Most flyers probably know pilots learn and finesse their skills on simulators.
But how many cruise ship passengers are aware crew on the bridge and in the engine room are also trained in a similar way?
I’m at CSMART (Center for Simulator Maritime Training) in Almere, near Amsterdam, to see the latest equipment at a €75million state-ofthe-art facility for officers in the giant Carnival Corporation.
Carnival owns the likes of Princess, P&O, Cunard and Holland America lines. With me on the virtual “bridge” of the Royal Princess cruise liner is its Captain Nick Nash, 59, who has been named as master of Enchanted Princess when she launches in Southampton next summer.
The simulator is incredibly realistic and offers digital versions of Carnival’s ships and more than 60 ports.
Steering the Princess down the calm, sunny Solent and indulging in unnecessary – but fun – extravagant rudder adjustments, I can see the Spinnaker Tower in Portsmouth off the port bow. There’s little traffic ahead... until the sim operators decide to make it more “interesting”. Cue a ferry, helicopter, warship and blazing oil tanker in the way. They could even add a whale. Suddenly there’s a 55mph storm and heavy seas to contend with. Now I am literally out of my depth! I give up the controls and learn a little bit more about CSMART, which was built on reclaimed land
and replaced an older facility in 2016. Around 8,000 Carnival officers from the bridge, engineering and electrical departments (aka Deck & Tech) go for week-long annual refresher courses.
The technology is mesmerising and quite different to one of the first pieces of kit Captain Nick was in charge of as a young officer... a crew condom machine! These days, as Nick explains, seamanship is all
about “electronic navigation backed up by visual clues” – letting computers take care of routine stuff, so the crew are freed up to oversee the sailing and react to any situation.
Which pretty much sums up what CSMART is about. Officers embracing the latest technology at sea, in harness with excellent teamwork... and, of course, not forgetting the good old Mark I Human Eyeball.
Just watch out for virtual whales.