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In 1976 the M/S Uglvig was the very first Danish maritime fire training ship.

Damage control in Esbjerg

“We only train ships’ crews in handling cargo when things have gone wrong. We teach them to handle things when fire has broken out, when ammonia is leaking from the cooling plants, when the gas tank is leaking under high pressure or when the passengers have to be evacuated from the ship. It is all done under one key word: damage control”.

These words come from Stig Petersen, head of Falck Nutec A/S at Esbjerg. The training facility is the former Esbjerg Brandskole, which since its privatisation in the year 2000 has developed a comprehensive training programme meeting the demands of today’s crews on ships, drilling rigs and fixed platforms at sea.

Total exercise
One of the features of the programme from Falck Nutec in Esbjerg is the training of all offshore crews.

“It is especially the Norwegian platform crews, that come to Esbjerg on very intensive training sessions”, Stig Petersen explains.
“We are currently setting up sessions for the whole crew of the Norwegian Gullfax A-field, giving them the training that is impossible to complete while on duty”, says Stig Petersen.

The Esbjerg training centre has set up the complete control room from the Gullfax A-field. The exact same features in alarms and telephone lines create the correct environment for the exercise. Since the whole crew from the platform is participating in Esbjerg it gives a special touch to the sessions as they are as close to reality as possible. The platform commander is the real commander, and the people situated in the various posts are the people, who would actually be there during an emergency situation onboard, this team being on duty.

“We think that this “Norwegian” way of training crews gives the best training possible”, says Stig Petersen.

It might seem a little overkill to travel from Norway to Denmark for a simulation exercise on a Norwegian platform. It is however impossible to do this sort of training on the platform while on duty, as production has to be maintained and a shut down would be far more expensive than shipping the crew to Denmark.

Reality
“In fact, earlier we have made an exercise almost realistic for the participants from a fixed Norwegian platform”, explains Stig Petersen.

	Falck Nutec Esbjerg A/S also has a facility in safe training of using a chute.

“Before the exercise started we made arrangements with the central SAR centre at Sola in Norway and with several of the standby and supply vessels in the vicinity of the platform and made them part of the exercise. So the platform commander was more than surprised when his call to the SAR centre and standby vessel had that element of reality”, says Stig Petersen.

“In all our training we have a clear purpose and that is to give our participants more competence for the position they are holding. Sometimes we even say “competence in favour of certificates”! We discovered early on that people sometimes could have the necessary certifications, but weren’t competent for the position, so we feel it is more important for people to be competent in a situation when there is a leak or fire onboard a ship, than to have the proper certifications”, Stig Petersen, explains.

Two segments
Falck Nutec at Esbjerg serves two segments in the maritime sector: offshore and ships. Around 60 per cent of the annual “production” of 8,600 persons comes from the offshore sector, while the remaining 40 per cent comes from ships.

“Unfortunately we can see a slight decrease of personnel from ships to our facilities. Not because we are doing things wrong or that it is too expensive, but more likely because more and more members of crews from Nordic owners come from other countries and their training and certifications are issued by local facilities. It is normal that a Filipino mate has his fireman’s certificate and training from a facility in the Philippines instead of from Esbjerg”, says Stig Petersen.

	We train people what to do when thing has gone wrong, says Stig Pedersen.

“We are developing our programmes all the time and adding new features”, says Stig Petersen. “One of the new features we have developed is damage control of ammonia”.

Since the ban on freon for use in cooling plants, old ammonia is back as a cooling liquid both ashore and on sailing plants like in reefer ships and LPG-carriers.

LNG
LNG is another feature, which has been added to the training of ship crews. Due to the expansion of seaborne trade with LNG and especially the A.P. Møller-Mærsk group’s expansion in LNG, a number of crew members have been on training sessions that deal with handling LNG under high pressure.
Falck Nutec is in the special situation to have access to a Nybro pumping station on the pipeline carrying LNG from the Danish sector of the North Sea to customers ashore in Denmark. The station can be used for training working with LNG under 120 bar pressure on a four inch line giving the right environment when the valve is opened.

“It is so unbelievable noisy to work with noise up to 120 decibel, making it very hard to communicate, but it gives the crew a realistic environment to train in”, says Stig Petersen.

At Falck Nutec crews can also train working with a helicopter on a helipad, evacuating personnel from an overturned helicopter on a helipad, as well as all kinds of fire training indoors and outdoors.

Falck Nutec has also a water facility where it is possible to train for evacuations from a ship or a platform into life rafts. The facility contains two shoots from the height of 15 metres. The recovery of a ship or a helicopter can also be trained, as well as a dramatic evacuation from a sunken and overturned helicopter at sea.

The simulation is used for Norwegian offshore personnel, for whom this training is compulsory.

History
The facility, some eight kilometres east of Esbjerg, was set up in the late 1960’s by the municipalities of Esbjerg, Bramming and Ribe, which needed a place for training the local fire brigades. Slowly it became more and more interesting to train ships’ crews through local education at the isle of Fanø, and in 1975 the first ship facility dedicated to this type of training was built. The trainingship Uglvig, built of steel and made just like a ship, gave the possibility to simulate fire onboard a ship and the evacuation of people by firemen in a hot and smoky environment.

The facility remained under municipal ownership until the early 1990’s when 50 per cent was sold off to the Falck Group, which then took over the remaining 50 per cent in 2000.

Text & photo: Bent Mikkelsen

Latest update 30-08-2007 15:29

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