Simwave has announced that it has signed a contract with Genting Hong Kong to cover bridge training across the company’s cruise brands. 

For the next five years, the crew and officers from the firm’s cruise brands will complete their training and assessments at the Simwave simulator center in Barendrecht in the Netherlands. A new Simwave centre will also be built in Singapore in 2018.

“Safety and best-in-class services are our top priority,” noted Gustaf Grönberg, senior vice president of marine operations and newbuilding.

“Simwave offers us state-of-the-art facilities to prepare our crews optimally to this end. So an evaluation on the simulators in Barendrecht forms part of the job application process for the crews to be assigned to the vessels under construction.”

Star Cruises, one of the subsidiaries of Genting Hong Kong, was the first cruise operator in the world with its own simulator center.

“The collaboration with Simwave means we are now able to use our state-of-the-art center ‘branded’ in our own house style, without the disadvantages of ownership,” said Grönberg.

As part of the collaboration, one of the Simwave 360-degree-projection full mission simulators in Barendrecht will be based on the bridge of Genting Dream.

The bridge simulator has a vertical projection system which is globally unique. Alongside all-round projection (on vertical cylindrical screens), eight projectors also project what’s happening on the water or the quayside, on both sides of the vessel.

“This makes it possible to simulate so-called ‘docking operations’ (berthing and unberthing quickly and safely) more realistically from the bridge wings,” explained Joost van Ree, co-founder of Simwave.