Estonian Maritime Academy

The Simulator Centre

The Simulator Centre enables us to take advantage of high tech solutions in providing a first class maritime education. It is the only Simulator Centre with maritime focus in Estonia, and it features bridge, maritime communication, engine room, refrigeration training, marine pollution control, PISCES II and other simulators. Simulators are located on two floors of the Academy.

The usefulness of simulators is highly appreciated, as they enable flexibility in training, optimizing both, the learning time and cost, compared to actual ships.

In the Simulator Centre there are four navigational bridge simulators imitating the driving of an actual ship, and installed in special rooms imitating real ship bridges in build and functions as closely as possible. One simulator is in a room with 270 degree visual range (large floor to ceiling screens) and other three in rooms with 120 degree visual range.

Simulators are created to feel as authentic as possible, regardless the type, length or weight of the vessel. The academy has over 50 ships (to be exact), 5 of them DP vessels. We have a cruise ship (Azipod cruiser), large container ships, VLCC tankers, solid bulk cargo ships, tugs (towboats), car transporters, RoRo ships, high speed crafts (HSC), and pilots, small crafts, rescue vessels, coast guard vessels.

The training drive on the navigational bridge simulator has to imitate the weather conditions characteristic to all sailing areas as closely as possible. Future mates-captains must be able to manoeuvre all vessel types in strong winds and storm, consider currents, ice conditions, shoals and this during night and day. Students can practice berthing in real ports, docking to floating docks, operating tugs, manoeuvring in canals or simple transit sailing.

We have 44 virtual port areas including Tallinn, Muuga, Helsinki, Antwerp, Rotterdam,
(Europort), Riga, Klaipeda, New York, ST.Petersburg and many others. Our programs enable passage through The Strait of Bosporos, Dover (English Channel), Suez Channel, The Strait of Singapore and several other complex marine routes.

The navigational bridge simulator enables realistic simulations of rescue operations in case of collision of ships, fire or being caught in a storm. Different situations – people overboard, lifeboats in the water, ships on fire or sinking, giving distress signals, etc.

This simulator is designed to simulate radio operations used in marine communications.

The study room is designed to enable real practice of radio communications by students, either with the instructor or among peers. There are certain norms and regulations of radio communication, set by corresponding international law. The expressions used in radio communication are set by regulations for berthing, rescue operations, in case of emergency, during evacuation – radio communication has a very important role in the work of a seafarer!

A real marine communications radio station „Sailor-2000 compact GMDSS station“, authorized to broadcast in all global search and rescue areas,  is installed in the simulator classroom.

The engine room simulator (ERS 5000) has been developed by Transas Ltd to train engine room personnel’s – watchkeeping engineers, 2^nd engineers and senior engineers – skills to keep watch and to learn all about ships power plants.
The simulator enables individual and group practices, testing the skills of students and specialists.

This simulator models completely the thermodynamic, hydrodynamic and gas dynamic processes taking places in ship’s machinery and systems; environmental aspects like sea water and air temperatures, wave height, cleanliness of ship’s hull are included as well.

Students practice every operation performed in a real ship’s engine room – preparation, powering, moving in special conditions, simulations of different faults and the types of engines. The engine room simulator can be used connected to the bridge simulator, which enables practicing actual teamwork on one virtual ship.

The simulator enables imitation of all types of refrigerating devices (including cold storage, conditioning devices); the preparations for powering up, powering up, setting up an appropriate working mode and increasing heat load. It is also possible to imitate faults in the work of these devices, diagnostics and resolving faults;
In Estonian Maritime Academy’s quarters operates a centre for maritime simulators, completed only just recently. The purpose of this centre is take advantage of high tech solutions in providing a first class maritime education. It is the only simulation centre with maritime focus in Estonia, and it features bridge, maritime communication, engine room, refrigeration training, marine pollution control and other simulators.
The usefulness of simulators is highly appreciated, as they enable flexibility in training, optimizing both, the learning time and cost, compared to actual ships.

PISCES II is an incident response simulator designed for preparing and conducting command centre exercises and area drills. The application is developed to support exercises focusing on oil spill response.

The PISCES II provides the exercise participants with interactive information environment based on the mathematical modeling of an oil spill interacting with surroundings and combat facilities. The PISCES II spill model simulates processes in anoilspill on the water surface: transport by currents andwind, spreading, evaporation, dispersion, emulsification, viscosity variation, burning, and interaction with booms, skimmers, and the coastline.

Read more about PISCES II simulator HERE.