TARG hosts Captain James Parson from Canada

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TARG hosted Captain James Parson (Academic Director, School of Maritime Studies, Marine Institute of Memorial University) from Canada for a one day visit. Cpt. Parson has much experience with leading the main responsibility in a wide variety of complex maritime operations.

The visit was arranged by Dr. Salman Nazir, as the follow up of discussions between the two at the annual meeting of International Association of Maritime Universities, IAMU, which was held in Vietnam.

A short meeting between Cpt. James with institute leader (Anne Kari Botnmark) – where long term collaboration among the two intuitions were discussed – was one of the highlights of the visit.
Cpt. Parson chose to not specialize in one specific type of sailing, rather, his curious mind led him to sail in much different type of cargo, from passengers to bulk and chemical. With this competence, he sees challenges in complex maritime operations from different perspectives. In an enquiry from TARG member, Jorgen Ernstsen regarding which operations are most common on a vessel, he answered that it depends on the cargo, and that the cargo which requires continuous operation to be safe is the most difficult, as you cannot simply shutdown the operation to a safe state, you must keep the parameters and variables working continuously.

TARG has recently acquired advanced tools to the keep up with further research on training and assessment in complex maritime operations. Cpt. Parsons had the opportunity to experience the potential in VR-glasses and could definitely – with his expert experience – see the benefit of using this technology in a maritime perspective (see image above).

Hearing about Cpt. Parsons experience was valuable for TARG. Furthermore, to hear first-hand from an expert about the potential of VR-glasses stimulate the motivation to keep researching how and why VR-glasses can serve the future of complex maritime operations.

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