Wärtsilä Land & Sea Academy Opens a New Training Center

Wärtsilä Land & Sea Academy (WLSA) today opened a new training center in Turku, Finland. This is one step for WLSA in its development program of opening three Academies for global coverage of training and competence management services to the personnel of ship owners and power plant owners. A new training centre was opened at Subic Bay in the Philippines in November 2005 and the third is located in Fort Lauderdale, USA. The Academies will form the spine in the global network of other locations at which WLSA also provides training services. The new WLSA training centre was opened by Tage Blomberg, Group Vice President and Head of the Wärtsilä Service business. The new training centre in Turku will hold nearly 200 courses during 2006 with some 2000 participants from around the world. The trainees will take advantage of the training centre's ship-handling simulator bridges, as well as top-of-the-line engine room simulators, cargo-handling simulators, and steam and gas simulators, which all provide thorough hands-on training. All the simulators can be connected for full ship operation simulation. In addition to well-equipped classrooms, there are workshops for practical training also on engines, propulsion equipment, marine high-voltage electrical equipment, engine room ancillary equipment and control systems. The provision at the new Turku training centre for supporting the growing LNG transportation market is worth special mentioning. The training centre is equipped to provide training on gas engines as well as LNG cargo handling.