Nautical Institute Log

Captain Chris Lefevere MNI

The Michiel de Ruyter NauticalCollege, Flushing

CaptainFred vanWijnen MNI

.To conclude, Captain Fredrik van Wijnen

MNI, General Secretary of CESMAand BranchSecretary, gave details of his findings in theCosta Concordia accident. He has been askedby the team defending Captain Schettinoto advise on the nautical background ofthe accident. Captain van Wijnen has along experience in defending colleaguecaptains before the Netherlands MaritimeInvestigation Board in Amsterdam and actsat the request of the Italian Shipmasters'Association USCLACof which CaptainSchettino is a member.After some questions from the audience,

consisting of NI members, interestedcolleagues and teachers and students of theDe Ruyter Institute, Captain Vink FNI, BranchChairman, concluded a most successfulseminar which may well have attracted theinterest of future NI members.

-+ The main Branch activity this year wasthe Annual General Meeting and seminar,held at the premises of the Michiel de RuyterNautical College at the Boulevard Bankertin Flushing. This location has a real maritimetradition. It is part of the official Netherlandshistorical buildings collection and overlooksthe entrance to the river Scheidt. Manyfamous Dutch navigators have graduatedfrom this school of excellence.Speakers at the seminar highlighted

several interesting maritime subjects.Captain Chris Lefevere MNI, Senior Scheidtpilot, General Secretary of the EuropeanMaritime Pilot's Association and a memberof the Belgian Branch, started off with aninteresting presentation about his work asa pilot. Pilotage on the River Scheidt is acooperation between Belgian and Dutchpilot organisations, with the Belgian pilotsperforming 75% of the activities. CaptainLefevere presented several points fordiscussion, including pilotage at a distance,the language in which information is - orshould be - communicated, safe manning ofships to be piloted, desirable speed in ordernot to create damage to shores or othervessels and prevention of accidents.Next was the turn of Prof Dr Stephen

Cross FNI, former director of the MaritimeInstitute Willem Barentsz ofTerschelling, whohas recently been involved in European andinternational projects related to maritimeeducation and training. He is currentlyworking on the UniMET project. whichintends to unify the core Maritime Educationand Training (MET) curriculum around theupdated STCWrequirements. The UniMETprogrammes are being cross-referencedwith the existing IMO Model courses, andincorporate relevant local, national. Europeanand international requirements or updates.The new programme will incorporate goodpractice from partner institutions with theaim of disseminating and implementingthese programmes across Europe and aroundthe world.One important component in the UniMET

programme is the M'aider project, whichreviewed the accidents, incidents and nearmisses in the Maritime Accident Investigation(MAIB) database between the years 2004-2011 in order to develop a range of scenariosbased on real-life incidents. These scenarioswill be used in full-mission simulators andin an e-Iearnlng platform supplementedwith e-assessments, allowing trainees toundertake exercises based entirely aroundreal-life situations from locations around theworld.

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Nautical Institutemerchandisenow available!

KEEPING IN 'l~OUCH

NI polo shirts in navy andwhite, price £ 15 and 1GBmemory sticks with the NI

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Please email member@nautinst.org to place yourorder, stating your preferred

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Association hopes that it will become the industryaccepted standard to which all UKHarbourMasters and their employers aspire.The UKHMA system will be available to its

members and will be accessed online via thewebsite. In common with other CPDschemes it isfounded on the 'learning cycle'with four distinctstages: Assess/Plan/ Record and Reflect.AsThe Nautical Institute stated in December

2011: 'We maintain that to become a goodthinking professional you need more than STeW,which is only subject to periodical review andamendment about every 5-10 years.With such afast pace of change and evolving technology inthe industry aswell as the wide variety of ships,trades and career paths, CPD is the only way tokeep up to date and ensure your professionaldevelopment'The presentation generated a large number of

questions from the floor. Solent Branch memberswere suitably impressed by the well designedscheme and recognised the need for individualsto manage their own learning with the supportof a profeSSionalbody. The Branch Chairmanthanked Peter Moth for his effortS.Matt Winter FNI

32 I Seaways I February2013 www.nautinst.org/seawe)