TRAVERSE CITY — Imagine steering a 1,000-foot freighter into the Soo Locks.
Or, fancy the burden of navigating a 700-foot boat in a violent storm on Lake Michigan.
Waves swamping the deck. Howling winds. Heart pounding.
Within a year or so, students at Northwestern Michigan College's Great Lakes Maritime Academy will replicate those exact conditions with the best high-tech equipment available for merchant marine students.
Maritime Academy officials ordered a $680,000 bridge simulator to train students in pretty much every scenario imaginable on the Great Lakes. Cadets who use the simulator will stand at a ship command center and navigate their way through digital rivers, lakes and ports using displays on a span of flat-screen televisions.
"It allows our cadets to get some sea time and experience in a safe, cost-effective and very green environment," said Rear Adm. Jerry Achenbach, Maritime Academy superintendent.
The academy's old simulator was just that: old. Its manufacturer was closing shop, making it impossible to upgrade the equipment. The academy also wants to offer students certification in electronic chart displays used for navigation. The new simulator allows the academy to do so.
"It's huge," said Cadet Laura Steinberger, who is training to be a certified 3rd mate and 1st Class pilot on the Great Lakes. "The new simulator is going to be digital, and definitely more modern."
Capt. Michael Surgalski said the simulator replicates 10 different types of ships. Students will see and feel what it's like to cruise through the Detroit, St. Clair and St. Marys rivers, and the Great Lakes, without worry of a catastrophic mistake.
"When they do go on a ship, they will have already seen those river systems before they get there," Surgalski said. "The learning experience will be much more enhanced and deeper."
The academy raised money from multiple sources to pay for the simulator. Rotary Charities offered a "challenge grant" in which the organization will match all donations up to $20,000.
The new simulator is a big deal for Traverse City and northern Michigan, Achenbach said, because it makes the academy the only facility of its kind to offer the high-tech training in the Great Lakes region.
"It's a major step," Achenbach said. "Someone can come here and earn a portfolio of credentials to insure they can work in the maritime industry in any environment, from the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico and obviously the Great Lakes. It will give our graduates more options than any other academy."
Region
Related Photos
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Plans are in motion to replace this bridge simulator, photographed at the Great Lakes Maritime Academy at Northwestern Michigan College's Great Lakes Campus. Record-Eagle/Keith King
Bridge simulator to train students
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