Transas has developed an Anti-Piracy solution that will support maritime schools in performing relevant training. The Transas Anti-Piracy package consists of a mothership, a smaller
mothership and four fastboats with different speeds. The look of all
vessels is typically ‘pirate’: badly maintained and rusty. The fastboats
have four different visual states that can be triggered during running
exercise to increase the threat by escalation levels from ‘fisher’ to
‘agressive pirate’ state.
During an exercise, trainees learn how to detect a hostile pirate vessel
using ECDIS, radar plotting, AIS information, visual sightings (by fuel
barrels on deck, weapons, type and number of crewmembers etc.) and by
comparison of target data with known behavioural patterns of pirate
vessels.
Evasion for merchant ships techniques include avoidance of contacts with
potentially hostile vessels or keeping out of range of known hostile
vessel’s weapons using course and speed changes.
Finally, preparations, best angle of approach and practicing of best
course and speed decisions are trained for closing and engaging hostile
vessels for Anti-Piracy forces.
If simulator configuration comprises more than one bridge, both attacked
merchant ship and assaulting pirate vessel can be loaded as own ship.
Pirate vessels as own ship can be controlled in a more realistic way to
simulate typical attack patterns. This allows the bridge team to
understand what effect their avoidance manoeuvres would have if scenario
is observed from pirate’s view.
Anti-Piracy training is all about early reconnaissance and recognition
and then about initiating the countermeasures and best management
practice at earliest” says Ralf Lehnert, Transas Marine Simulation
Business Unit director.
“That’s why we put a lot of efforts in making those typical piracy
attack vessels visually very close to reality and also provide realistic
manoeuvring characteristics. The fact that these exercise objects can
change their threat status from simple fishermen to aggressive attacking
pirates during a scenario will help the training organisation to
provide situational awareness training, from the early radar observation
to the final visual identification.”
“Our Navigational Simulator can also provide naval ships and helicopters
as escort objects for Convoy sailing and communication procedure
training. This is only a first start of a series of planned
functionality, as we see the piracy problem and its harm to commercial
shipping unfortunately not as a short term threat only.”
The Anti-Piracy solution has already found its first users: US Merchant
Marine Academy, Malaysia International Shipping Company and Akademi Laut
Malaysia already start courses using new Transas development.
The digitalship