The effect of preparatory bridge simulator training on development of situation awareness skills of watchkeepers

The paper deals with the concept of situational awareness of Officer of the Watch (OOW). For the purpose of the paper 100 accident investigation reports were analysed and it was concluded that lack of SA was a main contributing factor in the most of accidents. The issue of simulator training is also considered in the article. The analysis of STCW competencies and methods of competency demonstration for initial OOW certification was performed and it was found that a major part of competencies can be acquired through simulator training, including some of bridge watchkeeping competencies. Nowadays candidates for the first certification (cadets) join ships for their fist on-board training (OBT) without having any watchkeeping experience, so they have to acquire all relevant skills on board. Taking this into account, the authors propose to arrange preliminary bridge simulator training for cadets prior to their first OBT in order to develop basic watchkeeping and SA skills. The authors also consider the idea to reduce OBT time through appropriate simulator training. To support these ideas a group of acting seafarers was questioned and the data was processed with the use of fuzzy logic. According to experts’ opinion, preliminary bridge simulator training can be useful for cadets, allowing them to develop initial situational awareness skills by 40%. However, experts do not consider that simulator training can effectively substitute actual on-board experience and as for their opinions OBT time can be reduced by 5.3 weeks only. Thus, the issue such reduction requires further detailed research