KETCHIKAN, Alaska (AP) -- If you make a bad navigational error while piloting a ship, the result might be a real-world catastrophe.

But what if you make an equally grievous mistake piloting a navigation simulator on shore?

No worries. Just reset the program scenario and try it again.

As tools for maritime students to learn and practice navigation skills, simulators are tough to beat.

It's less expensive than shipboard training, without the risks to life, property and environment.

And, "the main benefit of a simulator is the ability for users to experience more learning events in one week than a person may experience out on the water in five or 10 years," according to a UAS Ketchikan announcement.

Which is why the University of Alaska Southeast has continued to upgrade its Ship Simulator Lab in Ketchikan.

The UAS Ketchikan campus Marine Transportation Department completed the most recent simulator upgrade this fall.

Funded by the Alaska Department of Labor and Workforce Development Technical Vocational Education Program, the $65,000 upgrade adds another helm station and boosts the number of 50-inch simulator screens from one to three, according to UAS Ketchikan.

It also adds a Ketchikan-based simulation area, in addition to Juneau, Snow Pass and Wrangell Narrows navigation environments.

The upgrade can display a variety of environmental conditions and other features in the simulated operational surroundings.

The displays can simulate any time of day or night with celestial bodies accurately displayed for date and time selected; varied states of visibility - fog, rain or snow; varied states of wind, sea and current with control of strength and direction.

The simulator controller can depict more that 200 types of vessels, aircraft, floating objects, persons-in-the-water, shipwrecks and land objects.

All of which sounds dryly interesting on paper. But actually using the simulator is a vivid experience.

Dale Miller, lead professor of Marine Transportation at UAS Ketchikan campus, gave the Ketchikan Daily News a quick demonstration of the upgraded simulator's capacities.

The scenario had the pilot navigating a small Coast Guard cutter-sized vessel in Puget Sound near the familiar skyline of downtown Seattle.

The three 50-inch screens provided a wrap-around view for the helmsman - so much so that every "movement" of the vessel as it turned to the rudder or reacted to swell action is almost tangible.

Miller could add vessels into the harbor, including boats that could be controlled from other helm stations in the simulator room.

A few commands from the instructor's computer station added a heavily listing bulk carrier ablaze near the shoreline and a fully laden container ship trudging toward the docks. All of a sudden, a man overboard appeared in the water, his arms waving in distress.

The weather and sea conditions were altered just as quickly, from flat calm to gentle rollers to wind-driven rain and a heavy swell with lightning flashes on the horizon.

In addition to allowing training scenarios for various types of navigation, docking and anchoring, the simulator provides training with three models of radar and can mimic conditions of engine, steering, gyro and other types of equipment failure.

In other words, the ship Simulation Lab is not a toy, it's a serious educational tool.

The university uses the Ship Simulator Lab for its maritime trade classes, including the electronic chart courses and the 100-ton license classes offered in Ketchikan, according to Miller.

"We are doing well," he said. "The last several years we have had close to 300 students taking short courses."

The simulator also can be rented to other groups such as Alaska Marine Highway System officers and apprentice marine pilots to practice vessel handling and other training.

Miller said the simulator lab started off about five years ago with simple PCs with 21-inch screens.

"We've been upgrading it every year as we can afford it," he said. "We've been adding software and hardware."

There's still room for improvements, said Miller.

"But we're seeing how much it gets used, and if it does get used as much as we think, we'll keep adding features to it."

---

Information from: Ketchikan Daily News, http://www.ketchikandailynews.com

© 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

Click here for copyright permissions! Copyright 2008 Associated Press