AFS – East and West Assignments

It has been a busy period for AFS Consultants, and their expertise has been utilised on varying assignments in different parts of the world.

In addition to their Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) training courses at South Tyneside College, Fleetwood Nautical College and the Port of London, in association with Associated British Ports, accreditation from the MCA was obtained to run courses at their Grimsby training facility.

Our VTS training courses were also delivered at the Ras Laffan oil terminal, Qatar, where we were contracted by Airbus Industries. Airbus had recently installed new vessel monitoring equipment to Qatar Petroleum and this project involved working with their new Styris radar/AIS system, and a VHF/telephone system provided by Zetron. Trainees attended both classroom and simulation sessions.

They returned to the Middle East to deliver back to back VTS refresher courses, following the IALA model course V103/5, part of a VTS certificate holder’s revalidation process. These were held at the Abu Dhabi Maritime Training Academy.  They have been engaged in course delivery at this location for many years and in addition to the VTS courses also deliver Human Element Leadership and Management (HELM) course at both Management and operational levels there.

Still more training took place working in association with one of their long standing clients, South Tyneside College. We were engaged in the delivery of Vessel Traffic Services (VTS), IALA V103/1 VTS Operator training in a new venture in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

The National Maritime Academy is situated north of the port of Damman and will be providing many accredited courses. The V103/1 course involves lectures, presentations and simulation exercises. Successful candidates gain an Internationally recognised VTS operator’s certificate.

They have been involved in giving professional opinion in both the engineering and marine monitoring fields. These two diverse assignments were covered by their Ex Chief engineer/marine superintendent and ex ship’s captain.

A two week course delivery in Angola and a week’s course delivery in Nigeria pretty much rounds up their news and air miles. With more assignments in place they are looking forward to another successful year.

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