(already subscribe? log in).

Maritime Academy helps tell liner story

THIS STORY APPEARED IN

January 29, 2012|By Martine Powers

The Massachusetts Maritime Academy has a new life-size ship bridge simulator,… (Photos by john tlumacki/globe…)

BUZZARDS BAY - Albion Llewellyn, a professional ship navigator, was not aboard the Costa Concordia when it sank.

But on the nautical bridge of a virtual cruise liner, surrounded by simulated swaying waves and images of the Tuscan coast, he could imagine what it would have felt like for the officers on board.

“That’s any navigators’ worst nightmare,’’ said the Massachusetts Maritime Academy graduate, facing two television cameras and a slew of very bright lights yesterday. “I know the captain would have experienced a sense of failure.’’

Discovery Channel is filming a documentary about the ill-fated luxury cruise liner, which ran aground off the coast of Italy on Jan. 13, and the Massachusetts Maritime Academy has a leading role. This weekend, a film crew from London traveled to the Buzzards Bay campus to film scenes for the one-hour television special.

One of the stars: A 360-degree, 50-foot ship bridge simulator - or, as Rick Gurnon, the academy’s president calls it, “a two-million-dollar Nintendo game.’’

The simulator, which was completed in September, sits inside a large, circular room. In the middle is a life-size model of a ship bridge, complete with over a dozen computer displays that feature the same engineering controls, radar screens, and electronic charts used on real ships.

Projected onto the walls are two-story-high moving graphics, similar to a high-definition video game, that exactly mimic the view from the ship’s bridge - including the waves, passing ships in the distance, and gently drifting clouds. Alarms sound when the ship moves too close to shallow water.

Operators can change most every component in the display: the time of day, the weather, sea conditions, even the type of ship portrayed in the rear view. Most of all, the simulator’s software has dozens of preloaded geographic areas all over the globe. The projector can portray a sunny, peaceful noontime off the coast of Miami Beach, and in a moment, can switch to stormy midnight navigation through the English Channel.

Yesterday, the simulator was tuned to the coast of Italy, miles from the Costa Concordia accident. An operator shifted the ship’s view to 60 degrees - the horizon listed upward on one side, prompting a few to grab the railing. That, officers said, was exactly what the last people off the Costa Concordia saw after the ship took on water through the hole in its port side.

Of the roughly 4,200 people aboard, 17 have been confirmed dead so far, and another 15 are missing, according to the BBC.