Germanischer Lloyd opens new training center

Germanischer Lloyd opens new training center Germanischer Lloyd has opened a new training facility in Tarrytown, N.Y. this week, which will be used by the German classification society's employees from throughout the Americas.
   Previously, training had been centralized in Hamburg, said Stephen M. Gumpel, a principal surveyor and area manager for North America. That centralization was great for achieving consistency, but GL realized there was great disparity in the educational needs of different employees, he said. For instance, an engineer with 25 years at sea didn’t need the same training in the basics as a new hire who was only 26 years old and a couple years of sea time.
   Training will be modular so it can be customized for different employees, and GL is using a new “coaching” concept where senior surveyors will act as mentors to junior employees.
   “Different parts of the world have different needs, within our society depending ship types and trades. In Asia we have an order book of over 1,200 ships. We need a certain surveyor type there,” Gumpel explained. “In the Americas, the container trade is booming and we are being flooded with state-of-the-art monster ships that one man can no longer survey — you need two people on board to do a survey and so the expertise and training is a different story.”
   Finding new surveyors is a challenge, and Gumpel said GL relies on a combination of general advertising, word of mouth and raising the profile of the society by having employees do teaching and training.
   GL announced the opening of the new facility Tuesday night during an event at the New York Yacht Club marking the classification society's 140th anniversary.
   Helping clients address environmental challenges will be an important part of Germanischer Lloyd’s business in years to come, said Rainer Schondube, a member of the classification society’s executive board.
   During a press conference, Schondube said his organization has already consulted with some shipowners about the dramatic reductions in fuel consumption and pollution that can be achieved by reducing ship speeds.
   Schondube said the drive to reduce greenhouse gases might someday result in renewed interest in trying to power commercial ships with nuclear power.
   Remarking on the changes that global warming are having on shipping, he said that by 2070, some experts believe ships will be able to traverse the Arctic Ocean from Asia to Europe via the “Northeast Passage” without icebreak assistance, a change that would shave 4,000 miles off current routings.
   GL has about 1,300 ships in its order book and about 500 of them will be built in China. As of Jan. 15, almost 43 percent of the world’s 3,893 containerships were classed by GL, and the society has another 600-700 containerships in its order book today, Schondube said.
   “There are a lot of smaller feeder ships,” he said, but GL also has 32 mega-containerships with capacities of more than 10,000 TEUs that it has been asked to inspect during construction.
   “We believe this will increase,” he said.
   Schondube noted that he met a shipowner who had ordered several megaships and had questioned whether he would find charterers. The shipowner told him that he had received 10-15 telephone calls from shipping companies shortly after knowledge of the deal became public.
   “One or two years ago I had doubts if these ships would come in such a mass — but now I am convinced other shipowners would follow to order these big ships,” Schondube said.
   Those mega containerships, he said, are being built in Korea and at a new Hanjin yard in the Philippines.
   While he does not know how they will be routed, he said most new ships are being built so that they will be able to traverse the Panama Canal via the new large set of locks that are being built. GL said the “new Panamax” ships will be able to haul about 12,500 TEUs.