Sea Time Reduction
Course Aims
The Sea Time Reduction Course should be an opportunity for the trainee to spend extended and intense periods of time on DP station keeping and must challenge the trainee to enhance, consolidate and demonstrate their:
- Knowledge of the DP system and additional equipment and instruments,
- Situational awareness,
- Communication and teamwork skills,
- Ability to analyse trends and pre-empt problems before they arise,
- Ability to evaluate and respond to alarms, faults and emergencies with calm, reason and confidence, and
- Ability to complete such administrative and safety-related procedures as completing checklists, filling in logs and performing thorough watch handovers.
The range of exercises a centre develops to achieve these aims should be appropriate to the intended target group. The following are examples of the typical operational areas that should be considered:
- Saturation and air dive support
- Sub-sea construction and heavy lift
- ROV operations
- OSV operations
- Cable and pipe laying operations
- Drilling operations
- Offshore loading operations
- Shuttle tanker.
Course Objectives
- Operation of a DP System
- Demonstrate the ability to set up and operate the DP system under the various control modes, and to carry out manual, mixed manual and automatic and fully automatic manoeuvres.
- Demonstrate within the DP Simulator the operation of position reference systems, sensors and peripheral equipment associated with the DP system.
- DP Operation
- Demonstrate compliance with appropriate procedures to be followed when approaching any work site and transferring from conventional vessel control to DP control.
- Demonstrate effective completion of pre-DP and other checklists.
- Demonstrate the effective communications necessary during DP operations and the testing procedures.
- Interpret vessel plans and specifications, capability diagrams and other data relevant to the planning and conduct of DP operations.
- Using vessel and other data, assess the capability of the vessel to successfully complete any proposed operation.
- Carry out a risk assessment exercise on proposed operations and determine the level of redundancy appropriate.
- Make appropriate contingency plans to cover any foreseeable system failure or operational requirement. Contingency planning to include appropriate escape routes for the vessel.
- Emergency Procedure
- Recognise the conditions that will cause degraded operational status or emergency status.
- Recognise the warnings and alarms associated with worst case failure.
- Evaluate the various factors to be taken into account subsequent to any system failure and determine appropriate actions. Carry out procedures to stabilise the vessel position and heading subsequent to a variety of system failures and take appropriate decisions and actions relating to the continuance or abandonment of the operation
Course Assessment
- Practical Assessment
Trainees shall be evaluated on the practical aspects of the course based on their overall performance during the conduct of the exercises and the Evaluation Exercise conducted at the end. Practical Evaluation shall be recorded on the Trainees’ Practical Evaluation sheet.
A Witten Test (Multiple Choice Questionnaire) shall be held at the end of the course to evaluate trainee’s grasp of DP Procedures and Station keeping principles.
Admission Requirements
The course is an optional element of the DPO training programme and as such successful completion of the DP Simulator Course is required before attendance. Candidate must hold a certificate of competency.
Duration
5 days
Participants
Max 3
Language
The course will be conducted in English.