Netherlands based Blue Orange Wave wins the ‘Training and Safety at Sea Award’ for their innovative training solutions

Maritime digital training solutions provider Blue Orange Wave is proud to announce it has won the Crew Connect Global Award for Training and Safety at Sea. The award is presented to a company, individual or team who have implemented significant technical, procedural, or operational improvements leading to reduction of risk to human life and cargo at sea. Some 21 companies were nominated in this category, with 5 making it to the finals – and Blue Orange Wave coming out on top.

The professional jury designated the Training and Safety at Sea Award as a result of a project that Blue Orange Wave ran with Holland America Line (HAL). Founder Capt. Tim Lodder says: “The project was about implementing a new way of vessel familiarisation for crew. With Edumersive, our immersive VR eLearning solution, new hires can now explore their future assigned ship, learn vital safety protocols, and practice emergency scenarios – anytime, anywhere, on any mobile device.” 

Interestingly, it was Crew Connect Global 2023 that brought about last year’s ClassNK Certification for Maritime Training Excellence for the company’s Edumersive Software.

Origins

This project ran close to Tim’s heart: Holland America Line was the first seagoing career stop on my maritime journey. It was this company that taught me the importance of fun in learning, training in realistic environments to effectively increase knowledge retention, practical reproduction, and last but not least – gain ownership back on knowledge as an asset and return to accessible development. In a way it put me on my track to starting Blue Orange Wave!”

Founded in 2018, Blue Orange Wave aims to make shipping and cruising safer, while having fun on the job. “After my time at sea and experiencing both the benefits of good training and the risks of bad training, it was a natural next step for me to develop Blue Orange Wave in order to combine my operational knowledge and expertise with developing and innovating digital training models and content, simulations, and e-learnings,”, says Capt. Tim Lodder, who worked for years on seagoining passenger vessels, and also on large scale projects that focused on training innovation and improvement. Examples are developing the STCW 2010 Manila Amendments national safety training standard in the Netherlands, and acceptation of the use of virtual reality in safety training by several flag state authorities around the world.

“We always try to make our digital solutions stand out in user-friendliness and flexibility. That way you can create tailored proprietary content; users can access, analyse, learn and train in ways that promote better performance across the industry in an easy and enjoyable way.”

Training technology

So what does this technology do? With a high turnover of crew members annually, it’s not an insignificant job to train new crew members and update all maritime personnel. Not only does this take time, but it’s also a costly affair. Blue Orange Wave’s solution is a virtual reality e-learning tool that crew members can use anywhere, anytime, on their smartphones, tablets, VR goggles and computers. This enables them to learn any topic related to training at sea.

Onboarding crews take time; with this software training time can be reduced. Much of the training can be done from home which eliminates the need to have crews out on a ship far in advance. With a 360° virtual reality camera, crew are able to immerse themselves in the onboard experience anywhere. The software is fully customizable and proprietary to the trainer, no third party involvement is needed. Trainers can create programs with theoretical knowledge and practical work environments for future seafarers to follow.

And for those that don’t have access to the internet, that’s ok too. The program is fully downloadable and doesn’t require the internet to function, even with the VR component. By utilizing Blue Orange Wave’s solution, crew are already familiar with the vessel and equipment before they even come onboard.

Next up for Blue Orange Wave is to make the system even more accessible, including the improvement to better connect through a single sign-on connection to any possible learning management system in the market. Tim says: “The honour of this award drives us to do more for the seafarer and companies that want to improve realism in training. A big thanks to HAL and our team for reaching this amazing milestone!”