Last week I had the privilege to visit the beautiful country of Finland. Between Finland and Sweden is a precious archipel. The main island is called Äland, with its capital Mariehamn. This town is really breathing a maritime atmosphere. There is a high density of shipping companies which represent the whole seagoing fleet: ferry, tanker, Ro/Ro, dry cargo and ship management all on one island.
As this is such an important place for ship owners and their inhabitants, it is obvious that a maritime academy couldn’t be missed. The academy and all related educational institutes cover everything there is to a sailor. Here you can be trained to become an engineer, to a master of all ships. They also host a safety center where you can update your STCW certificates, with simulators and much more.
Practicing real life on board with MXSuite
The training ship Michael SARS has been equipped with MXSuite for many years now. But this was only managed outside the organisation of ASA. At the end of 2021 I was contacted by Kristoffer Joelsson, the Manager of the Academy. He visions that the overall reality on board is more and more part of the training and education of the young seafarers. This obviously ment that MXSuite should become part of the curriculum. I had the privilege to train the teachers, but also give an interactive lecture for the students.
During the lecture I challenged the students with questions like:
- Why doing maintenance onboard?
- What is the difference between planned, condition based and predictive maintenance?
- For whom is it beneficial to do maintenance?
- Who likes administrative chores?
- Why should you log everything you are doing?
- Is it possible to digitize your ISM?
You can imagine we had a vivid conversation and I was pleasantly surprised to have their full attention for 45 minutes. After lunch we continued the training with the teachers, before I had to take the ferry back to the mainland. I definitely like to come back here and enjoy the open atmosphere and the hospitality of Mariehamn.
Visit the webpage of Alandica Shipping Academy.
