Way-finding On-Board Training for Maritime Vessels S. Tvedt 1 , H. Oltedal 1 , B.M. Batalden 2 , M. Oliveira 3 1 Haugesand University College, Norway 2 UiT – The Artic University of Norway, Norway 3 Sintef, Norway Abstract In the maritime industry, it is of vital importance that personnel onboard ships are familiarized with the ship’s layout, along with safety equipment and processes for safeguarding of the individual seafarer and the ship’s crew. In fact, international maritime regulations require that all personnel employed or engaged on a seagoing ship receive proper familiarization training. However, several studies have identified lack of familiarization as a contributing factor to maritime incidents. There are several challenges associated with the current familiarization practices, namely cost, difficulty in optimizing planning, variation in practices in familiarization and the experience of the facilitator of familiarization process. This paper presents a study consisted of 58 students comparing traditional and virtual familiarization. The study found that there were no significant differences between real and virtual familiarization, and some support for differences between the familiarization conditions for single waypoints. Individual differences are clearly more important than the mode of familiarization. 1 Introduction In the maritime industry, namely regarding logistics and transport, seafarers are exposed to a high diversity of safety and security risks as potential occupational accidents, disasters and piracy (Oldenburgh, et al., 2010). In many of these incidents, the response time often plays a critical role in making the optimal decision, with limited information and short timeliness, towards achieving a successful outcome. A key factor to the decision making process is adequate familiarization of the vessel’s design, equipment and outfitting. In fact, international maritime regulations require that all personnel employed or engaged on a seagoing ship receive proper familiarization training (IMO, 2011, IMO, 2014). However, there is a lack of standardization of vessel design, which leads to significant amount of diversity in layouts and structure, making familiarization a tailored process applied to each vessel. It is also important to denote that on certain types of vessels, such as offshore support vessels, a great number of people may not be part of the ordinary marine crew. However, this does not exempt them from receiving basic familiarization training. The importance of familiarization cannot be overemphasized as demonstrated through the additional statutory requirements for familiarization through industry standards such as the Common Marine Inspection Document (CMID) and Offshore Vessel Inspection Database (OVID) (IMCA 2013, OCIMF 2010, OCIMF 2011). When analyzing existing familiarization practices amongst different shipping companies, one can distil a common approach which is based on the provision of a guided tour throughout key points within the vessel. This tour corresponds to relevant safety locations and routes through the vessel between locations. The familiarization practices also include the demonstration of particular safety equipment. Atypically, the familiarization tour is conducted by a qualified person such as the safety officer of the vessel.