Some pilots and tug masters have completed a training course during which they simulated manoeuvres on the new generation of an ultra large container vessel in Marsaxlokk port.
The infrastructure was built in Malta for this ship and similar ones. The ship is 400 metres long and 56 metres wide, The Malta Independent Online reported on Tuesday.
This ship, the size of four football grounds, is still being built and will carry 16,800 containers.
It is bound to berth in Malta during the day or at night and has to follow strict schedules.
Some pilots and tug masters have completed a training course during which they simulated manoeuvres on the new generation of an ultra large container vessel in Marsaxlokk port.
The infrastructure was built in Malta for this ship and similar ones. The ship is 400 metres long and 56 metres wide, The Malta Independent Online reported on Tuesday.
This ship, the size of four football grounds, is still being built and will carry 16,800 containers.
It is bound to berth in Malta during the day or at night and has to follow strict schedules.
From the Mediterranean, it will need to pass through the Suez Canal and if it loses its timing slot, it would have to wait a number of days, costing it thousands of euros per hour.
The Chief Pilot, Jesmond Mifsud, said the simulator was the only one in the Mediterranean and a similar one was found in Holland. It made it possible for pilots and tug masters to train, understand the limitations they have and learn how to work with the existing resources.
The ship should call at our port towards the end of the year. Meanwhile, CMA CGM captains have also been in Malta to train on the simulator.
Training for Maltese maritime pilots and tug masters was divided into three modules: Port infrastructure and risk assessment, ship handling practices in various weather conditions and emergency manoeuvring including engine failure, radar failure, assisting tug disabled and bow thruster failure.
The City of Glasgow College, with which the Mediterranean Maritime and Research and Training Centre is twinned, has conducted an independent evaluation of the operations. Pilots and tug masters training at this college can now come to Malta to use this simulator.
MMRTC is the training and research cooperative set up by the Malta Maritime Pilots Cooperative in September. Since then, it has offered high-quality and specialised training to pilots and seafarers that was not offered in Malta before.
Financial assistance from the European Regional Development Fund innovation funds acquired through Malta Enterprise, helped the Malta Maritime Pilots and Tug Malta to build the simulator and undertake the training at the MMRTC, at the Transport Malta building. Training was also co-financed under the ETC Training Aid Scheme. This allowed a captain from CMA CGM to supervise the operations at the simulator.
Before the simulator was built in Malta, pilots used to do their training abroad. The last one-week course for 15 pilots at Port Ravel cost €200,000.
Mr Mifsud said this sort of training, and the new skills acquired, are generating a ripple effect on the economy because they mean more ships being able to call at our ports. Continuous training is meanwhile necessary as ships change all the time.
The Malta Maritime Pilots Cooperative is filling a gap in vocational training offered by leading an international consortium in the implementation of CertiPilot: A Leonardo project co-financed by the European Commission, to create a common EU framework for pilotage training, as this does not exist.
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