The Port Revel Shiphandling Training Centre is a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 maritime pilotage school that trains pilots, masters, and officers on large ships like supertankers, container ship

Container ship

Container ships are cargo ships that carry all of their load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. They form a common means of commercial intermodal freight transport.-History:...

s, LNG carrier

LNG carrier

An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas . As the LNG market grows rapidly, the fleet of LNG carriers continues to experience tremendous growth.-History:...

s and cruise ship

Cruise ship

A cruise ship or cruise liner is a passenger ship used for pleasure voyages, where the voyage itself and the ship's amenities are part of the experience, as well as the different destinations along the way...

s . The facility uses manned models at a 1:25 scale on a man-made lake designed to simulate natural conditions including harbours, canals, and open seas. It was the first such facility in the world. The Centre was created in 1967 near Grenoble

Grenoble

Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...

, (France) by Laboratoire Dauphinois d'Hydraulique (now Sogreah).

The courses are given by former maritime pilot

Maritime pilot

A pilot is a mariner who guides ships through dangerous or congested waters, such as harbours or river mouths. With the exception of the Panama Canal, the pilot is only an advisor, as the captain remains in legal, overriding command of the vessel....

s. Since 1967, the Centre has trained over 6 000 maritime pilots, captains and officers from all over the world. French, European and North American pilots make up 90% of the Centre's students.

The manned model

Ship model

Ship models or model ships are scale representations of ships. They can range in size from 1/6000 scale wargaming miniatures to large vessels capable of holding people....

 training regime is now recommended by the International Maritime Organization

International Maritime Organization

The International Maritime Organization , formerly known as the Inter-Governmental Maritime Consultative Organization , was established in Geneva in 1948, and came into force ten years later, meeting for the first time in 1959...

 under Resolution A 960 (23) of December 2005.

The facility was written about by John McPhee

John McPhee

John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....

 in an article for The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic Monthly

The Atlantic is an American magazine founded in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1857. It was created as a literary and cultural commentary magazine. It quickly achieved a national reputation, which it held for more than a century. It was important for recognizing and publishing new writers and poets,...

, also published in his book Uncommon Carriers.

History

The centre’s origin goes back to the fifties, when Port Revel’s mother company, Sogreah, was studying bank erosion on the Suez Canal using model ships sailing on a scale model with a movable bed (i.e. granular material subjected to erosion by turbulent water movement).

At the end of the sixties this experience with free sailing model ships was used by Esso to anticipate the manoeuvring behaviour of the new, much larger, oil tankers.

After three years spent with Esso captains between 1967 and 1970, the Centre was taken over by Sogreah in 1970.

During the 1970s, most students were captains, while the first maritime pilots came to discover the centre.

In the 1990s, the first refresher courses were organised for pilots, who returned every 5 years. These courses are less directive and leave more room for customisation, which is a way of optimising port operations to increase port accessibility.

Manned model shiphandling training has improved over the years because:

• the instructors have become more proficient in delivering the courses and in their ability to structure courses as required,
• lake facilities have undergone changes, such as the creation of extensive shallow water areas with currents, and can mimic specific port scenarios,
• all kinds of large ships are available and model electronics have become more sophisticated in order to reproduce real ship manoeuvring behaviour,
• tugs have become a part of the courses since 2000, providing realistic capability for berthing/unberthing operations and escort work,
• pod propulsion is now available,
• introducing quality assurance has increased the reliability of ships and equipment,
• the lake area was extended from four to five hectares during the winter 2008-2009,
• a large container ship (8 500 TEU) was added to the fleet in 2009,
• a large LNG carrier of 266 000 m3, the Q-Max, was added in 2010.

Manned models

Manned models are small scale models

Ship model

Ship models or model ships are scale representations of ships. They can range in size from 1/6000 scale wargaming miniatures to large vessels capable of holding people....

 that can carry and be handled by at least one person on an open expanse of water. They must behave like real ships, giving the shiphandler the same sensations. Wind, currents, waves, water depths, channels and berths must be reproduced realistically.

Manned models are used for research (e.g. ship behaviour), engineering (e.g. port layout) and for training in shiphandling (e.g. maritime pilots, masters and officers). They are usually at 1:25 scale.

The aim of training on manned models is to enable seamen to acquire or to develop manoeuvring skills through a better understanding of a ship’s behaviour as it sails in restricted water conditions at manoeuvring speed. Manned models are considered by ships' captains and maritime pilots as the next best thing to a full-scale prototype for understanding a ship's behaviour.

Those who have trained on both claim that scale models are complementary to computer simulators

Computer simulation

A computer simulation, a computer model, or a computational model is a computer program, or network of computers, that attempts to simulate an abstract model of a particular system...

. While manoeuvres with currents, waves, tugs, anchors, bank effects, etc. are reproduced more accurately on scale models, numerical simulators are more realistic when it comes to the bridge environment.

Lake

The 5 hectare

Hectare

The hectare is a metric unit of area defined as 10,000 square metres , and primarily used in the measurement of land. In 1795, when the metric system was introduced, the are was defined as being 100 square metres and the hectare was thus 100 ares or 1/100 km2...

 lake is located in the lower Alps

Alps

The Alps is one of the great mountain range systems of Europe, stretching from Austria and Slovenia in the east through Italy, Switzerland, Liechtenstein and Germany to France in the west....

 near Grenoble

Grenoble

Grenoble is a city in southeastern France, at the foot of the French Alps where the river Drac joins the Isère. Located in the Rhône-Alpes region, Grenoble is the capital of the department of Isère...

 where the wind regime is very mild. Moreover, it is sheltered by a forest. Hence uncontrolled wind effects on ships are minimised.

At 1:25 scale, the lake area represents a navigable zone of about 5 by 2 nautical miles, allowing several models to sail at the same time at normal manoeuvring speeds and to berth at one of the 50 berths and piers. Shallow and very shallow water areas (less than 10% under keel-clearance for certain ships) are to be found on about 70% of the lake area.

The lake is fitted with wave, current and wind generators and complex port approach configurations. Around 50% of the lake is subjected to currents.

Fleet

The model

Ship model

Ship models or model ships are scale representations of ships. They can range in size from 1/6000 scale wargaming miniatures to large vessels capable of holding people....

 ships are all at 1:25 scale. There are 11 ships and 3 tugs. All ships are equipped with indicators giving rudder angle, engine speed, ship speed, wind speed, etc. Most of the ships are equipped with bow and stern thrusters and anchors. Five ships are equipped with a DGPS tracking system.

See similitude of ship models

Similitude of ship models

- Manned models :Many research workers, hydraulics specialists and engineers have used scale models for over a century, in particular in towing tanks. Manned models are small scale models that can carry and be handled by at least one person on an open expanse of water. They must behave just like...

for details of the scaling factors involved.

External links

• Port Revel website
• AFCAN website
• Marine-Marchande.net website