On the high seas of central France.

I learned about this place while reading Uncommon Carriers by John McPhee, one of my favorite non-fiction authors. One chapter of the book describes a facility in land-locked central France where captains of large bulk carrier ships come to train in the fine art of avoiding catastrophe at sea.




At Port Revel "students" captain custom made 1/25 scale hulls of large ships, practicing docking, avoiding accidents, maneuvering through the Suez Canal , and all manner of maneuvers that might be required of a large ship. Time scale is by a factor of five, so what takes 12 seconds on the lake is equivalent to one minute of real time.

Originally the imagery was very poor, so I created an overlay showing the facilities as a placemark. The imagery has improved so if you want to see the imagery of the lake, simply uncheck the box in front of the placemark.

Source.

NOTE: Turning on Google earth's pictures layer will link you to a few of this area.

This post is a slight modification of a post I created HERE in the Old GEC.

Attachments:

Port Revel_v2.kmz (1.09 KB)

I more recently found that there is another facility in the U.S. similar to the one in France. It doesn't have its own dedicated lake, nor does it have as large a fleet, but the training is similar. The Massachusetts Maritime Academy operates the Keith Hartford Sailing Center on Great Heron Pond in eastern Massachusetts. Images below are from this source , which has more information.

Source

This material was originally posted HERE in the OGEC

Attachments:

Massachusetts Maritime Academy Keith Hartfo....kmz (861 B)

The UK's equivalent is Warsash Maritime Academy.

The first facility was at Marchwood but has recently moved to a purpose built facility at Timsbury.





www.warsashacademy.co.uk/facilities/ship-handling-centre/facilities-and-staff.aspx

www.warsashacademy.co.uk/facilities/ship-handling-centre/the-fleet/the-fleet.aspx

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1191412/The-ultimate-boys-toys--150-000-replica-supertankers-used-train-captains-tomorrow.html

Attachments:

Warsash Maritime Acadamy..kmz (1.52 KB)

This place looks like more of a complete training set-up than the two I've described.

I read somewhere there were 9 facilities world wide, 6 to go!

Poland.

www.ilawashiphandling.com.pl/about.html

5 to go.

Attachments:

Ilawa Shiphandling Centre Silm Lake Poland.kmz (803 B)

Interesting video from Port Revel.....