Atlantic Towing is providing $700,000 to fund the construction of a new marine simulator for Camosun College. This is expected to boost the interest of college students looking forward to a career at sea.
Camosun vice president of partnerships Geoff Wilmshurst is very enthusiastic about the project.
“I’m responsible for a number of areas of the college, including Camosun International, which includes the [Camosun] Coastal Centre,” says Wilmshurst. “About six months ago it became known to us by Transport Canada that we were going to need to transition from our current simulators to a new standard in order to continue offering the same programs that we had been over the last few years. We needed to upgrade that equipment, so we went ahead and started to do that.”
Wilmshurst’s team knew that there had been a similar partnership between Atlantic Towing and Nova Scotia Community College.
“We had conversations with Atlantic Towing,” says Wilmshurst. “They had provided monies to Nova Scotia Community College about a year ago to upgrade their simulator program, and we were wondering if there would be an interest in doing something similar to our program, on our coast. That was actually almost exactly two years ago now,” Wilmshurst says. “So they announced funding of $700,000 to be provided to us over two years. At Camosun, we ride on tight budgets so any time we get a gift of that nature that is able to offset our expenses, it is extremely helpful to us, and we are extremely grateful to Atlantic Towing.”
Wilmshurst says that the new simulator is a way to keep the nautical programming in Camosun up to date.
“First of all, this allows the program to continue, because without this equipment we wouldn’t even be able to keep on running it,” says Wilmshurst. “Secondly, it is going to allow us to do even more than what we have done in the past. We are going to be able to offer even more programs in the nautical sphere; we work very closely with companies like Seaspan. We are still in the construction phase—the simulators are being built at the Interurban campus, currently.”
Wilmshurst says that the simulators should be up and running by September. (This interview was conducted before the COVID-19 pandemic impacted college operations, so the timeline may change.)
“Probably in early 2021 we will be able to offer them in our nautical program,” says Wilmshurst. “There are all kinds of variations of simulators, some of them much more elaborate than the one we’re building,” he says. “There is one we are building for Memorial University in Newfoundland, which I have had the opportunity to actually be on, where you feel like you are standing on a ship bridge off a vessel, any vessel. You can program in any port in the world, in any kind of weather situation.”
Atlantic Towing specializes in the provision of marine services; it is headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick.