Course content

Their aim is to enable Masters and Pilots to develop and acquire new skills through a better understanding of a ship’s behaviour sailing in restricted water conditions at manoeuvring speed.

• The courses last 4 or 5 days from Monday morning or evening to Friday evening.
• They are run from April to November each year on 4 or 5 weeks-on, one week-off (for maintenance) frequency.
• They consist of theoretical lectures (1-2 hours each morning) followed by practical exercises on the lake using the models.
• The centre can accommodate up to 8 students at the same time.
• They embark on the models in pairs.
• They change model and partner during the day.
• Each student is alternately captain and chief engineer-helmsman.

Due to Froude’s laws of similitude applied at Port Revel, the time scale is the square root of the linear scale, i.e. square root of 1/25 = 1/5 at the centre.
After a week’s training, the captains and pilots have had about 35 hours of practical shiphandling.
To carry out the same number of manoeuvres in real life they would need almost 175 hours!

For further reading, see Françoise Massard's detailed report "Training at Port Revel".

Several types of course are available :

Shiphandling Course (5 days)

Each day of the week is devoted to a particular subject: : study of turning in deep and shallow water, study of the role of the pivot point in ship manoeuvres, berthing with or without current, mooring at an SPM./ FPSO with waves and current, manoeuvring with anchors (dredging and mooring), passing and overtaking in a canal, etc.

Refresher Course (5 days)

Students may draw up their own programme with the instructors in order to examine in greater detail certain aspects of operations that are particular to their own pilotage district.

Emergency Shiphandling (4 days)

The course features manoeuvres such as: drift and manoeuvring in swell and/or current, emergency stopping in a canal with anchors, docking and undocking dredging anchor, zigzag manoeuvre with tug at stern and engine/rudder failures, proceeding through channels with engine/rudder failures, using the escort tug to stay in the channel.

Escort Tug Course (5 days)

The course is conducted for half of the time spent on the lake with remote controlled escort tugs (two Voith Schneider tugs and a Z-peller tug, all with around 60 t bollard pull). Typical exercises with tugs are: zigzag manoeuvres with tug at stern and engine/rudder failure, systematic trials with various engine and/or rudder failures, various emergencies in a J-shaped channel, rudder failure in a canal, various dockings using tug and/or anchors.

Eperimenting with Pods & Emergency Shiphandling (5 days)

In order to make our Training Centre more attractive to experienced pilots and masters, we have decided to introduce this new pod course in 2006 for those who wish to discover podded propulsion and associated mechanical failures. This resulted in a very interesting combined course with pods, tugs and with emergency manoeuvring on various ships.