Arison Maritime Center features a medical centre, a hotel and an 110,000sqft CSMART Academy
By
Rebecca Gibson |
Carnival Corporation & plc officially opened its new €75 million safety training centre, the Arison Maritime Center, in Almere, Netherlands on 14 July.
Carnival Corporation’s global leadership team and board members, Dutch government officials, the Netherlands’ secretary general of ministry of economic affairs Maarten Camps and Franc Weerwind, mayor of Almere, all attended the ceremony. Located just outside of Amsterdam, the centre was dedicated to longtime board chairman Micky Arison and his late father Ted Arison, who founded Carnival Corporation in 1972 with one ship.
Designed by Dutch architect Paul de Ruiter and constructed by Netherlands-based Dura Vermeer, the new seven-acre Arison Maritime Center has double the training capacity of Carnival Corporation’s old training facility in Almere. This will enable the company to train more than 6,500 deck and engineering officers from across its ten cruise line brands every year.
The campus features an advanced medical centre, a 176-room hotel for Carnival Corporation trainees and an 110,000sqft CSMART Academy (Center for Simulator Maritime Training). Equipped with four full-mission bridge simulators and four full-mission engine room simulators, the five-storey academy also has 24 part-task engine simulators, eight debriefing rooms and eight part-task bridge simulators.
Modelled after the newly designed bridge of the Koningsdam from the company’s Holland America Line, CSMART Academy’s full-mission bridge simulators provide an authentic shipboard experience for participants to build skills in navigating complex control and automation systems. The training exercises reflect real life scenarios and sea conditions including ship traffic, aircraft interference, weather events and wildlife circumvention.
Similarly, the full-mission engine room simulators are based on actual ship layouts and systems, scaled to size and representing a diesel electric engine room comprising six diesel generators and two propulsion motors, and ancillary and auxiliary equipment. The simulators allow trainees to navigate their way around the actual engine room of a ship to operate and repair equipment.
“The opening of the new Arison Maritime Center and expansion of our CSMART Academy is a major milestone in our company’s history and an exciting day for all of us at Carnival Corporation,” said David Christie, senior vice president of maritime quality assurance for Carnival Corporation. “The safety and comfort of our guests and crew is our most important priority, and the Arison Maritime Center underscores the depth of our commitment to making sure our ships sail as safely as possible. Our bridge and engineering officers are the heart and soul of our ship operations, and this centre takes to a new level our dedication to providing our officers with the maritime industry’s most comprehensive and progressive safety training.”
The Arison Maritime Center also provides space for the industry’s first Proficiency Training and Assessment programme. The week-long course is based on a specially developed curriculum that is renewed annually and then evaluates each of the corporation’s maritime officers.