Port Revel Ship Handling Training Centre

Port Revel is used for shiphandling training of maritime pilots, masters and officers on a 5 ha lake with 11 manned model ships representing 20 vessels, and 4 tugs at scale 1:25 and DGPS tracking system. Instructors are former maritime pilots.
Training on the scale models provides experience that could never be gained on real ships for the simple reason that neither ship-owners nor local authorities would allow such risks to be taken. Scale models allow the shiphandler to make mistakes....

A new 1:25 cruise ship manned model, the "Voyager", was added to our fleet in 2014. She is 311 m long and is fitted with 2 azimuthing pods (and one Fixipod) and powerful bow thrusters. Training is conducted in emergency conditions like engine failures, crash stops, tight turns ...

Two new locks were introduced in 2009 for training in the new Panama lock conditions with or without tug(s). This video shows the famous "piston effect" when entering the lock at an impressive speed of 10 knots with a high blockage factor.
Port Revel provides shiphandling training using manned models for maritime pilots, masters and officers: http://www.portrevel.com

Understanding the fundamentals of the pivot point is highly required for understanding the alteration of the courses. Pivot point is an imaginary point on the vessel which turns on a circular path on the perimeter of vessel’s turning circle when the vessel makes a turn. The knowledge about the position of the pivot point in a manoeuvring situation provides the ship handler with the information on the geometry of motion of the ship.

On 1st April 2022 Brazil Pilots - Praticagem do Brasil - will organize a webinar about dangerous ladder with speaker Arie Palmers.

In this webinar, Rev. David Reid, AFNI looks at why we need to learn this skill and put it to work to promote safety at sea and the wellbeing of our colleagues. Are we mind full or mindful?

In fact, the pivot point that we “see” is a trick of the eye, it looks like the ship is rotating about this point but in fact it is elsewhere, a point that you cannot see.

This video shows an introduction on the Spiral-Test-Manoeuvre and describes the procedure how to steer through this manoeuvre and measure the data needed. The results will be displayed in a characteristic diagram allowing to identify stable and unstable conditions and related, detailed information, e.g. spiral loop width and height, rudder angle of neutral effect. Samples of stable and unstable ship behaviour demonstrations will be shown by Fast Time Simulation using the SAMMON Planning tool.

In this special episode of Beyond the Frame, we take a peek into the career of ship pilots as told through former Maryland pilot and artist Captain Brian Hope's work, Boarding a Liberty ship - 1947.

Big thanks to Geraldton Port Authority for allowing Bill and I to go out in one of their pilot boats and board a ship. It was a beautiful day for it.