30 Nov Simwave Newsletter November 2020

Find out what happened at Simwave in our Newsletter November 2020. Sign up for the newsletter here for regular Simwave updates!

Message from our CEO Marcel Kind

With the holiday season upon us we are launching some strategic partnerships in the next months, which will further strengthen our added value towards our customers. Despite the pandemic, our team has shown resilience and we are extremely happy to broaden our footprint and deliver our training online and in different places in the world.

Our Learning Management System (LMS) and the Simwave Maritime Assessment System (SMAS) enable to serve our clients online and provide training and assessment solutions on a larger scale. We are more than pleased to see the traction of both solutions and we continue to expand the online training portfolio and partners on the LMS. 

In the next month we are still busy with training and different applied research projects. The different LNG trainings are well received as well as our polar code training. Meanwhile we carried out different applied research projects where we enable stakeholders to join the project remotely. In this newsletter we inform you about a FPSO project we carried out recently. 

Our Training Manager also informs you about the FATIQUE training we developed for crew members. Especially during the pandemic the mental health of our valued crew is of utmost importance and therefore we develop different trainings.

If you like more, feel free to contact me or one of our team members. 

With warm regards,

Marcel Kind
CEO & Founder

FPSO operational study

During week 47 we conduct simulations for an offshore safety evaluation. The aim of this project was to evaluate the ability of an anchor handling vessel to keep connected to an FPSO during extreme weather conditions. In addition, simulations demonstrated how the vessel was able to provide heading control assistance to the FPSO under severe weather. 

It was possible to explore the main constraints of these types of operations by means of analysing, amongst other factors, the towline tension, propulsion pitch and position and heading excursions. 
Besides having client’s representatives inhouse, Simwave was able to provide live streaming during all simulation sessions for representatives located in Scandinavia. 

During this pandemic situation, it was extremely important to provide remote connection to our customers, making it possible to move projects forward. 

50 MINUTE FATIGUE COURSE IN JANUARI

In the run-up to Christmas, with short days and longer periods when it is dark, a lot of us hardly get any daylight outside our buildings. Combined with the obligation of social distancing or even isolation and stress because of the COIVID-19, it can cause feelings of depression and fatigue. In turn, this can influence our wellbeing, safety, and productivity.

Taking up the phenomenon of fatigue on board of ships, this can lead to very unpleasant situations. Moreover, there have been some serious incidents in the past with critical vessel casualties and personal injuries where fatigue was identified as one of the main causes.

Fatigue can be defined as a state of physical and/or mental impairment resulting from factors such as inadequate sleep, extended wakefulness, work/rest requirements out of sync with circadian rhythms and physical, mental or emotional exertion that can impair alertness and the ability to safely operate a ship or perform safety-related duties (source: IMO MSC.1/Circ1598).

This definition is visualised in the flow diagram below, showing the possible result of inadequate sleep, etc.

Dutiful employees with a heart for their work and a tendency to push themselves into the background are vulnerable to a slowly increasing fatigue without even realizing it. Especially on board, ‘getting on with little sleep’ may seem tough, but it can lead to a state of fatigue that can become dangerous. Most people generally underestimated their level of fatigue.

Dutiful employees with a heart for their work and a tendency to push themselves into the background are vulnerable to a slowly increasing fatigue without even realizing it. Especially on board, ‘getting on with little sleep’ may seem tough, but it can lead to a state of fatigue that can become dangerous. Most people generally underestimated their level of fatigue.

There is a saying that those who take good care of themselves take good care of the boss, and there is some truth in it. So, let us take care of fatigue.

Of course, having good and workable company policies and procedures is very important. But those are extrinsic drivers. More effective is an intrinsic motivation to avoid fatigue. It all starts with an awareness of how fatigue can creep into someone functioning and what the dangers are. 

Therefore ‘Promoting awareness of the causes and consequences of fatigue and developing and delivering training programmes and courses’ (source: IMO MSC.1/Circ.1598) is of utmost importance.

Starting from January 2021, Simwave offers a short online course of about 50 minutes, delivered on a regular basis, about fatigue.

If you are interested in attending this course, learning more about fatigue and how to prevent it, please do not hesitate and send an email to welcome@simwave.nl

Open enrolments

On our website we also offer a range of open courses. These courses will be extended in the coming period. The open courses that we are offering at the moment are LNG introduction for shoreside personnel, Polar & Ice Navigation, DP Familiarization Course, STS operations, Navigation Assessor Course, etc.

Please have a look at our open courses.

In our Learning Management System we also offer a lot of different courses. If you would like to know more please contact us. 

Trending LinkedIn: FPSO

Trending Instagram: Offshore Ship Handling

Enjoyed the newsletter? You can read our previous newsletters over here.