New Delhi: In a boost to the Indian Navy’s ability to train personnel to mitigate emergencies at sea, Goa Shipyard Ltd (GSL) will be constructing a damage control simulator for the Andaman and Nicobar Command at Port Blair.

The Indian Navy and GSL had formally signed the contract for the simulator in August 2020, this being the seventh simulator that GSL will build for the armed forces.

The simulators will help train naval personnel to deal with various types of vessel damage, from fires to water ingress, said GSL officials. They said that the simulator will have 19 compartments and can simulate five different damage control exercises. As many as 24 naval personnel can be trained at a time,” officials said.

Lieutenant General Manoj Pande, the Commander-in-Chief of the Andaman and Nicobar Command, will lay the foundation stone for the project, which will pave the way for the construction of the simulator. The system can simulate ship movements, compartment flooding, failure of electrical power and machinery.

It is essentially a training system that simulates a realistic and stressful, but controlled environment for crew training in ship damage control and repair. “The crew needs to be able to respond to the threat with efficiency, expertise and confidence gained from training in similar situations,” said a naval officer.

Till date, GSL has built six simulators and has even exported a damage control simulator to a neighbouring country.