Until I went off to Maine Maritime Academy I owned my own boat and fished 500 traps at Orrs. I still run 100 traps as a hobby. If we still have half of our gear at the end of the season I consider myself lucky. But they're still the best deckhands you can get. Since qualifying as a Portland pilot, Mark has honed his mastery of the tricky dynamics of large ships at three bridge team simulator schools.
Bridge simulation is the seaman's version of the airline pilot's flight simulator.
Virtual seascapes and passing ships, viewed through the windows of a pilot house heaving on hydraulic lifters, make the exercise realistic. Mark's last training assignment was in scale models on a 12 acre lake at the Warshash Maritime Training Center in Southampton, England. Warshash ranks high on Mark's list of training facilities. They are scaled to the lake and a 40,000 ton scale model reacts just like a 40,000 ton Irving tanker. Its the most realistic training you can get without using someone else's 23 million dollar ship.