The new simulation centre will be located at the Lakeside North Harbour business hub, near Portsmouth, UK. Copyright: Lakeside North Harbour

The new simulation centre will be located at the Lakeside North Harbour business hub, near Portsmouth, UK. Copyright: Lakeside North Harbour

Wärtsilä said in press release that the  centre  is an expansion of the Maritime Skills Academy’s (MSA) training portfolio serving the Solent region, and is designed to meet the specific simulation training requirements of cruise, ferry and superyacht clients. MSA Solent is part of the Viking Maritime Group, headquartered in Dover, England. The software is developed by Transas, a Wärtsilä company, who will also provide technical and maintenance support to the project. The order with Wärtsilä was booked in March 2019.

The new facility will be uniquely positioned to service the needs of its targeted clients. It will be the world’s only commercial training centre to have a fully integrated Wärtsilä Nacos Platinum system within the full mission bridge simulator and associated course provision. Wärtsilä will also deliver the software solutions for a full mission engine room simulator with a customised cruise ship model and various other training aids.

- Collaboration with partners and customers is central to realising Wärtsilä’s Smart Marine vision, and this is a classic example of how it can work to serve the needs of the industry. Thanks to our joint collaboration efforts, this centre will deliver exceptional training possibilities through the use of our solutions. This also supports the very modern and popular “as-a-service” concept, says Alex Ponomarev, Sales Expert for Wärtsilä Voyage Simulation and Training.

- We thank Wärtsilä for its support in helping us to deliver a very high standard and culturally attuned training provision. This is an essential part of our key objective, which is to promote the safest and most efficient standards in the maritime industry, says Matthew Jaenicke, Group Managing Director, Viking Maritime Group.

Prior to the centre’s implementation phase, the desired simulation specifications were established in close cooperation with industry experts. This enabled the achievement of the most realistic physical environment and delegate learning experience possible.

The MSA Solent simulation centre is scheduled to open in July of this year.

Transas was acquired by Wärtsilä in 2018, and is a global market leader in ship & fleet operation solutions, including bridge infrastructure, digital data, and electronic charts services, and applications requiring access to real-time information. The company is also a leader in professional training and simulation solutions, ship traffic control, and AI-based decision-support tools. Transas leverages the latest advances in machine learning to create a unified cloud-based platform for managing operations across the entire marine ecosystem. The company has regional offices worldwide and a distribution network that spans 120 countries. Its workforce of approximately 1000 employees includes a large and competent team of engineers who, together with Wärtsilä’s team, work to accelerate the development of smart digital solutions.