Carnival invests US$81 million in new training centre

Carnival Group has spent €75 million (US$81 million) on a new maritime training centre and accommodation complex in the Netherlands. The operator of around 110 cruise ships is installing engineroom and bridge simulators, supplied by Transas, in the new facility in Almere, near Amsterdam.

Carnival uses its own Center for Simulator Maritime Training (CSmart) for training nearly 4,000 officers per year in the Netherlands, but the facilities were deemed too small for its expanding requirements.

In June 2014, Carnival decided to build a brand new facility on reclaimed land in Almere port, and chose Transas to supply all the simulator equipment in December 2014. Construction company Dura Vermeer is building the training centre. According to CSmart technical director Lars Husted, construction and installation work will be completed in May when the systems will be tested.

Arison Maritime Centre will be inaugurated in July. “We have invested €75 million in the Arison centre, including a five-storey training facility and 12-storey hotel to accommodate our trainees,” Mr Husted told a conference in Singapore.

The centre will have four full-mission bridge simulators, with bridge wings for berthing exercises, and six part-bridge simulators. It will also have four full-mission engineroom simulators and 24 part-engineroom simulators, as well as a high-voltage training suite, engineering workshops and computer-based training classrooms.

CSmart managing director Hans Hederstrom said the new facility will enable Carnival to train officers on all ships across its brands on the latest bridge and engineroom practices. Carnival has reorganised its bridge teams to create better teamwork on its cruiseships to minimise the risk of future accidents and incidents. It expects to train and retrain up to 6,000 officers a year in the new centre.