And I thought flying a Boeing 747 was tricky.
The other day, I got to land a 40,000-ton ocean-going cargo ship in a narrow slip at Port Everglades. And let me tell you, that dock will never be the same.
Actually, and happily, I was only one of the hands on deck, operating a $12 million full-view ship simulator at the STAR Center in Dania Beach.
This complex trains about 100 students a week in various maritime skills from captaining large ships to working as crew members on a tug.
When I heard about its simulator, I thought it would be interesting to compare navigating a big ship with flying a widebody airliner, as I have flown 747 simulators a few times.
The folks at the STAR Center, which actually stands for Simulation, Training, Assessment & Research, were kind enough to oblige.
You would be surprised at the similarities.
The pilots of both these enormous machines must be extremely attentive to their mediums, as in water currents for the boat and winds for the airplane.
In both cases, they must be cognizant of the physics of weight, speed and momentum at all times. Both the 747 (which has a gross weight of about 400 tons) and the ship require a very long and careful approach to their final landing spot.
And, in both cases, to be the person in the driver’s seat requires a tremendous amount of skill.
This I learned during an exercise of sailing the Polaris, a simulated 592-foot freighter with a 106-foot beam.
Because the biggest boat I had ever captained fit in my bathtub circa age 3, I was given the job of helmsman, or the person who steers the rudder at the command of the captain.
But here’s where things get a bit complicated. When a ship comes into a port, it’s usually not the captain who guides in the vessel but rather a harbor pilot who is intimately familiar with that port’s water currents and channel depths.
So for our simulated run, Capt. Michael J. Cunningham, managing pilot of the Port Everglades Pilots Association, barked the orders. He is a real harbor pilot, who has guided big ships to their berths about 5,500 times at Port Everglades.
Meanwhile, Capt. Gerard Pannell, head of the deck department at the STAR Center, played the role of the ship’s commander. Although at age 35 he looked a little too young for this job, he was in charge of a real 60,000-ton ship at age 27.
We all took our positions in a bridge simulated to be 120 feet above the water. The graphics of this 360-degree simulator were very precise and colorful.
Surrounded by a cartoon-blue ocean, I could see the beaches, the Point of the Americas condo at the mouth of the port, the Florida Power & Light Co. power plant and fuel storage tanks.
The bridge itself was a dark cave about the size of your TV den, equipped with all kinds of dials, knobs and big computerized screen displays.
Two big leather chairs sat on either side of a huge console. There were bright read digital readouts of our speed and course. And there were lots of switches and levers to control our simulated 13,000-hp diesel engine and the pitch of the 20-foot propeller.
We started two miles out at sea, chugging at a robust 12 knots, but immediately throttled back as it takes these big babies a long time to slow down.
Our boat was drafting only 32 feet, meaning that’s how much of the hull was under water. That made it considerably more maneuverable most of the ships that enter Port Everglades, as the average draft is 38 feet, Cunningham said.
I stood at a console behind the captain’s post, turning a wheel that controlled the rudder — and, wouldn’t you know, it looked something like the yoke on a 747.
Cunningham would call out “mid ships,” and I would neutralize the rudder at zero degrees. Or he would say, “rudder 20 degrees right,” in which case I would refer to a speedometer-like instrument to turn the rudder to that precise point.
Much like a 747 must compensate for winds, we had to “crab” the bow into the currents to enter the port channel without being pushed aground.
But the tricky part was holding enough speed to maintain directional control, all the while realizing 40,000 tons doesn’t stop on a dime. In fact, at one point, Cunningham ordered full reverse power for quite some time — and the Polaris kept plowing forward.
“You get the point of how hard it is to stop a big ship,” he said.
As we crept into the port, two tugboats raced out to meet us. I never realized how important tugs were until I heard Cunningham ordering them to nudge us in the right direction. It was as though they were two more attachable engines.
Finally we lined up for a slip next to where another big ship was docked. It was impressive how Cunningham constantly ordered power and rudder changes to slide our ship in.
“If you’re going as much as a knot sideways, you’ll crush the dock,” he said.
As it was, we did bounce off the dock, but just slightly.
We also practiced some other exercises, such as trying to pass other ships in narrow port channels. Again, that isn’t nearly as easy as it sounds, considering a strong wind could push one boat into another.
In all, we sailed the simulator for about an hour. Just like aviation simulators, it is so realistic that the Army Corps of Engineers and the port are relying on it to better define a dredging project.
Further, most of the big cruise lines rely on the simulator to train and teach crews to better work together, particularly when a problem surfaces, Pannell said.
“Until recently, the maritime world had not been doing this,” he said. “We’ve learned a lot from the aviation industry.”
After all this, I have a whole new respect for how hard the crews of oceangoing ships must work for even a routine docking. I also realize that I don’t have the right stuff to dock a really big boat.
Guess I’d better stick to airplanes.
Ken Kaye can be reached at .
