The marine industry’s first ever course designed to provide the essential information needed to prepare, plan and execute a successful dry-docking is to be launched by Lloyd’s Register’s Marine Training Services in Piraeus on June 29, 2009.
The three-day Essential Dry-Docking Course, is aimed at existing marine superintendents, technical managers, fleet managers, senior sea staff and anyone involved in planning a docking. Lloyd’s Register decided to develop the course after market research revealed a shortage of qualified superintendents capable of carrying out dry dockings efficiently.
Steve Robson, Lloyd’s Register’s Senior Technical Training Specialist, said, “A dry docking has huge financial implications for owners, and requires a set of skills, and a need for awareness from those responsible, that cuts across several job specifications. From financial, to repair work, to coatings.”
To address those requirements, the modular course will cover:
• introduction to dry-docks
• specification preparation and tender evaluation
• the importance of planning
• repairs
• preparation for departure
It will also introduce a new word, and a new concept, into Lloyd's Register’s lexicon of learning – heutagogy – or ‘self-determined learning.’
“What that means,” said Robson, “is that this is not a lecture-based course. There are no PowerPoints here, and the trainer stands at the back of the class, not the front. What we do is take the delegates through what a dry docking requires. Each module of the course is a step they would have to take in real life if the ship they were responsible for was about to be dry docked.”
The process culminates in a final analysis, delivering to each student a comprehensive understanding of what is required, and equipping them to:
• be able to prepare, plan and cost a dry-docking
• have a more in depth knowledge of dry-docks
• be able to contingency plan for repairs and modifications
• be more pragmatic and understand what can and cannot be done within the Rules of classification
Each course full course is designed to accommodate around 15 delegates. Future courses can be structured around selected modules, with each module capable of being delivered as a separate entity.
Further courses are already being planned for Dubai in September, and Copenhagen and London later in 2009.
(www.lr.org)