www.sea-technology.com March 2017 / st 31
L
ocked inside a purpose-built
room at a research institute in
the Netherlands, afxed to the
oor by anchors drilled down 35
cm into deep concrete, is what
looks like a gigantic metal spider
with a small boat on its back. This
strange mechanical contraption
stands on six spindly legs which
constantly stretch and contract,
causing the small craft it is carry-
ing to bang up and down. These
movements are the reason this
machine exists: What resembles a
War of the Worlds alien is in fact
a new type of motion-based simu-
lator for fast small ships, bounc-
ing around as it slams into virtual
waves. The machine's spider-like
architecture forms the motion
platform upon which the replica
boat sits, and the technologies
controlling the platform make this
the most realistic simulator of its
kind ever built.
Currently housed in the vast R&D;
center of MARIN (Marine Research
Institute Netherlands) at Wagenin-
gen, near Arnhem in the Nether-
lands, this machine is a further de-
velopment of the conceptual Fast
Small Ship Simulator (FSSS) for crew
training rst shown by its maker,
Cruden, at the High Speed Boat Op-
erations (HSBO) Forums at Lisbon,
Portugal, in 2015 and Gothenburg,
Sweden, in 2016. At both events,
the prototype simulator was tried by high-speed boat spe-
cialists from all over the world and very well received.
The prototype is now ready, after further development,
to be transported to Den Helder for use by the Netherlands
Defence Academy. After
the prototype is posi-
tively evaluated by the
Royal Netherlands Navy
(RNLN), it is expected
that by next year the
Netherlands Ministry
of Defence (MOD) will
commission three more
production-specication
simulators to support
their small craft train-
ing, a sure sign that the demonstrator has performed so
well in preliminary trials that the Navy is convinced of its
merits. And it's not only the military that will benet from
this simulator: Civilian boat operators and boat designers
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Advanced Marine Simulator Borrows from Automotive Tech
#Z.BBSUFOWBO%POTFMBBS
Currently housed in the vast R&D; center of MARIN at
Wageningen in the Netherlands is the Fast Small Ship
Simulator (FSSS), for use by the Netherlands Defence
Academy. (Photo Credit: MARIN)