Transas anti-piracy solution

The company has developed a new anti-piracy solution which aims to support piracy training.

Ralf Lehnert, Transas Marine simulation business unit director said: “Anti-Piracy training is all about early reconnaissance and recognition and then about initiating the countermeasures and best management practice at earliest.

“The fact that these exercise objects can change their threat status from simple fishermen to aggressive attacking pirates during a scenario will help the training organisation to provide situational awareness training, from the early radar observation to the final visual identification.

“This only a first start of a series of planned functionality, as we see the piracy problem and its harm to commercial shipping unfortunately not a short term threat only.”

The simulator uses vessels that look typically ‘pirate’ – in other words, badly maintained. It uses a mothership, a smaller mothership and four fast boats with different speeds.

During a running exercise, the fastboats can be triggered to increase the state of alert from ‘fisher’ to ‘aggressive pirate state’.

Trainees can also learn how to detect a hostile pirate vessel using ECDIS, radar plotting, AIS, visual sightings and by comparison of target data with known behavioural patterns of pirate vessels.

The aim is to help students understand avoidance manoeuvres, evasive techniques, communication and engagement.

Transas Marine’s anti-piracy solution is already being used by the US Merchant Marine Academy.