USING A NAVIGATION SIMULATOR IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF A COLREGS ECOURSE

Acquisition of skills to apply the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGs) is one of the basic abilities of students from the Navigation specialty. Further training is a global requirement as well as self-improvement of students worldwide. Training institutions have no opportunity to do so; moreover, the creation of new centers would require a large financial resource, which necessitates flexible approaches to the training while taking into consideration the current situation. The build-up of electronic resources in the environment of the global network for a complementary or further training with assessment of performance is entirely in the spirit of modern standards for providing relevant training. Application of navigation simulators is a new approach to creating training content for the electronic courses. It has a gradual transition between university education and the need for additional COLREG training. One of the main advantages of using simulations is the different angles in which a given situation is presented and the possibilities for re-pass. The comparison of what is visually observed from the bridge and the radar screen with a "bird eye-view" gives learners additional skills to read real situations in their practice.