Platform supply vessel simulator — DP, the joystick and the 500 m zone, in the browser

Nobody learns to hold an 80 m ship five metres off a platform leg by reading about it. The 500 m checklist, the VHF call, the drift-off side, a thruster tripping with a load on the hook — these are hand-and-eye skills usually learnt on the real bridge or in a full-mission simulator room. Our PSV puts them in a browser tab: two azimuths, two bow tunnels, a joystick, a simple DP and a training platform in the Gulf of Riga. You can sail her now in the browser, on your phone too.

The boat

The PSV is a platform supply vessel of our own design: 80.4 m long, 18.0 m beam, 6.2 m draught, about 6 400 t, with a high forecastle, a three-deck house forward under a wrap-round bridge, and a long cargo deck aft with yellow crash rails and deck cargo. The house forward matters: her windage is about 260 m² head-on and 760 m² side-on with its centre well forward, so drifting she lies stern to the wind, as a real PSV does.

• Two azimuth thrusters aft, about 1 900 kW and 300 kN each at the bollard; they turn all the way round, 360° at 10°/s.
• Two bow tunnel thrusters, about 900 kW and 140 kN each — like real tunnels they lose their grip with speed and give nothing from 5 kn. No stern tunnel.
• 14.3 kn ahead, 8.9 kn astern; hard over she turns at about 110°/min in a circle of some 3.5 lengths; on the joystick she walks sideways at about 2.5 kn and twists on the spot at about 60°/min.

Working in a joystick or DP mode under 3 kn she shows Rule 27(b): red-white-red all-round lights at night, ball-diamond-ball by day. The 3-D view is her bridge — the platforms built in three dimensions, the waves along her hull, her thrusters heard working, a platform's deck lights and flare at night. ⛶ GLASS fills the screen with RADAR, CONNING, CHART and HELM as panels over the view.

What you learn on her

Everything here is a control, a mode or a drill on the screen. V cycles her control modes; the PSV panel on the right shows them as buttons.

• LEVERS — the lever is both azimuths' rpm, the wheel turns them ±35°, Q / E the bow tunnels. How 6 400 t carries her way, and how two turning azimuths steer a ship with no rudder.
• JOYSTICK — ↑ ↓ ahead and astern, ← → sideways, Q / E turn, M centres. The stick asks for forces and the allocation shares them between the azimuths and the bow tunnels. Only under 6 kn; over 7 kn the levers take over.
• AUTO HDG — the joystick with the heading held; Q / E move it 1°, Shift 10°. Walk her along a platform face without her bow wandering.
• AUTO POS — a simple DP holding position and heading against wind, sea and current, with wind feed-forward from her own anemometer and a DGPS reference that wanders about 0.3 m as a real one does. The arrows move the set point 1 m (Shift 10 m), Q / E 1°, SET HERE marks where she is. The lamp reads DP OK, POS WARN at 3 m / 3°, POS ALARM at 5 m / 5°, THRUST LIMIT from 90 % of capability, THRUSTER FAULT, POS REF JUMP.
• Reading the allocation — the panel draws her outline with each azimuth's push in orange, the bow tunnels' in blue, the demand in green, the wind and current relative to her bow, the set point with its 3 m and 5 m rings, and the load. Beam-on she holds 25 kn, 1.6 m of sea and 0.6 kn of current within 0.3 m at 30 % load; from about 40 kn she can no longer hold.
• Takeover — touching the lever or the wheel in a joystick mode hands control back to LEVERS.
• The 500 m zone — stop outside on the drift-off side, do the checklist (azimuths swung 50°+, bow tunnels tried both ways, JOYSTICK or AUTO POS selected, ✓ WEATHER against the 35 kn / 3.0 m limits), then the VHF CALL — three ways to say it, one right: her name, her position, checklist complete, the request and its purpose. Enter without permission and the exercise fails; over 5 kn inside costs points.
• Drift-off or drift-on — which face of the platform is safe in this wind and current; wrong, and the exercise tells you why.
• The working box — her side 5–10 m off the jacket's legs, her aft deck within 6 m of the crane hook, parallel within 10°, at 0.35 kn or less, for three lifts of 45 s. Under 3 m the crane stops; contact fails the run.
• DP failures — a thruster trip during a lift (DP ALARM: stop and move out to 30 m clear), and a DGPS jump on the weather side that drives her at the jacket: take manual control and get clear. Your reaction is scored by the second.

The five judged exercises are in ⛽ OFFSHORE → OFFSHORE PRACTICE: INTO THE 500 m ZONE, DRIFT-OFF OR DRIFT-ON?, CARGO LIFT — JOYSTICK, CARGO LIFT — DP and DRIVE-OFF ON THE WEATHER SIDE. Each sets its own wind, sea and current, scores out of 100 with up to three stars (★★★ from 90), and your best is kept in your browser. Free practice follows at TRAINING PLATFORM GR-1 and off BALTIC BETA in the real weather, no judge.

Every one of the five has ▶ DEMO: a demo DP operator sails it on the real controls — the levers, the JOYSTICK, the DP modes, the set point, ✓ WEATHER, the VHF call — each control lit with an orange ring as he uses it while the DEMO bar says the order and why. Take over at any moment, or watch to the end and press ▶ YOUR TURN.

The sea is real

Free Mode starts in the Gulf of Riga, in full detail; TRAINING PLATFORM GR-1 stands in the middle of it, about 13 NM south-east of Ruhnu — a training object, not a real structure. The whole Baltic is yours, and AREA opens a picker of 107 real harbours round it. The real installations are where they stand: the jack-up production platform BALTIC BETA and the wellhead platform PG-1 on the B3 field about 40 NM north of Rozewie, the oil platform, and the BALTIC 2 wind farm north of Rügen, its 80 turbines placed after OpenStreetMap. Each shows a white Mo(U) light every 15 s, red Mo(U) lights at its corners, sounds Mo(U) every 30 s in fog and paints a big, bright radar echo. A 500 m SAFETY ZONE surrounds every installation and one covers the whole farm — magenta on the chart, the radar and the docking plan.

The weather is today's: the wind is MET Norway's real forecast where you are, with the cloud, rain, snow and fog it brings; the sun, moon and stars stand where they really stand. The sea builds with the wind, and the waves' drift is one of the forces the DP works against. CURRENT shows the water moving — offshore about 2.5 % of the wind's speed, 20° to its right. Round you is COLREG traffic AI that gives way and stands on, on a radar PPI with AIS overlaid, CPA/TCPA, and an OpenSeaMap chart with EMODnet depths.

Shared sea — other real people on the water

Logged in, SHARED SEA is on by default — one live sea for everyone at ×1 — and you can switch it off. The boats you meet off Riga are other skippers' boats, sailed by real people at that moment, and the Rules are applied for real by both of you. In a PSV you are the big, slow one: working, you show RAM lights and the yachts must keep clear. A PRACTICE WIND of your own is yours only; the others keep the real wind and see PRACTICE WIND beside your name.

Classroom and the scenario builder — for schools, clubs and instructors

An instructor builds an exercise in ✎ SCENARIO BUILDER: the place (any harbour of the Gulf or the Baltic, or any point on the chart), the OWN VESSEL from the VESSEL list — the PSV included — TIME & WEATHER (any clock time on any date, wind with gusts and veering, visibility down to thick fog, the sea state), other vessels with their types and routes, AREAS and TRIGGERS. ⇗ MAKE A LINK packs the whole scenario into the link; whoever opens it is ready to ▶ RUN.

🎓 CLASSROOM puts a class on one private sea. TEACH is for the instructor: a name, what the class sails — FREE SAILING, a SCENARIO, a DOCKING LESSON or a DRILL, offshore among them — and OPEN THE CLASS gives a code and a link. Up to 30 students join from any browser, a laptop, a Chromebook or an iPad. The INSTRUCTOR VIEW shows every boat with her track and CPA ring and injects what the sea does not: 🌫 FOG, 🌬 WIND, ⚙ ENGINE FAILURE, ❚❚ PAUSE ALL, a message to one or all; ▤ SUMMARY prints each student's results. Students run shared scenarios for free.

Where she fits

The PSV is one of the working vessels: ⛽ OFFSHORE is hers, beside ⚑ PILOT, ⛓ TOWING and ≋ SURVEY — the survey catamaran LOTE carries the PSV's joystick and DP on her own panel, so what you learn here transfers. Her exercises open in ▦ PLAN, the view from straight above framing your ship and the working box; ◩ 3-D returns to the bridge; ⚓ DOCK shows the boxes and the hook on the docking plan. A game controller steers her in the JOYSTICK · DP layout: left stick ahead, astern and sideways, right stick turns; on AUTO POS the sticks move the set point. The ECDIS chart plotter unit is a separate route-planning exercise; the big ships have wings and LOOK AFT; ELEONORA has ⛵ REGATTA THE BALTIC LAP — the first lap; the next will be somewhere else in the world, and the race tells you about every place you pass (the mark cards).

Who it is for

Professional and leisure alike. The cadet before the first watch, the deck officer, the pilot, the tug, offshore or survey crew, the training centre that wants a situation every student can repeat — and, on the same sea, the leisure skipper who is curious how the working boats are handled and what the ship on the horizon can and cannot do. The vessel, the sea and the rules are the same for everyone; only the exercises are the professional's.

How to start

Free Mode is open to everyone — no account needed — with the 15 m motor yacht and the 50 ft cruiser LATEKO at up to TIME ×10; every other vessel — the PSV and the other working vessels among them — the docking, sailing and ECDIS units, the scenario builder and Classroom TEACH come with the simulator subscription; students join shared scenarios free. SHARED SEA and the regatta need a free SkipperCheck login. Our main product is the VHF course (€199) at /vhf-course: the certificate comes from the course, the practice from the simulator.

FAQ

Does it run on a Mac or a phone?

Yes — a browser page on Mac, Windows, Chromebook, iPad or phone, nothing to install.

Is the wind real?

Yes, MET Norway's real forecast for where your ship is. The judged exercises set their own wind, sea and current so every run is comparable; the real weather comes back afterwards.

Can I sail with friends?

Yes. In the SHARED SEA you meet other skippers in real time; a class puts your group on a private sea.

Can a school use it?

Yes. An instructor opens a class with TEACH, students join with a code or a link, up to 30 at a time.

Do I get a certificate?

The VHF course gives the certificate. The simulator gives practice, scores and stars — and a demo DP operator to learn from.

Take the PSV out to GR-1 now: /colreg-simulator?scenario=familiarization&area=gulf-of-riga&vessel=psv — and start with the VHF course at /vhf-course.

Related reading

• Offshore simulator — PSV dynamic positioning at a platform and CTV push-on transfers at a wind turbine, in the browser
• Crew transfer vessel simulator — the push-on at a wind turbine, in the browser
• Survey catamaran simulator — multibeam lines, the SV cast and DP track-keeping, in the browser
• ASD tug simulator — harbour towage, azimuth drives and the towline, in the browser
• All articles · Open the simulator

Boat types are described generically; SkipperCheck is not affiliated with any boat builder or class association.