Tapiit to offer livestreamed onboard training via Inmarsat's Fleet XpressTapiit to offer livestreamed onboard training via Inmarsat's Fleet Xpress

While onboard computer based learning has become commonplace livestreamed training to vessels is a new frontier. It potentially offers substantial cost savings to owners versus shore-based training and can also help in the current environment where shore-based training difficult or impossible to conduct due to the Covid-19 situation.

Tapiit Live has signed an agreement to become an Inmarsat Certified Application Provider (CAP) enabling it to offer livestreamed training nearly 10,000 vessels globally on the Fleet Xpress system.

Richard Turner ceo of Tapiit Live believes the agreement could transform maritime training.

“This is a hugely exciting moment for seafarer training,” he said. “Tapiit saw a gap in the market as previously internet costs, with enough bandwidth to enable live streaming, were so high that it was thought live stream classroom-style training would not be available for 10 years – now we’re delivering it to close to 10,000 ships. Tapiit has done a lot of technical work in the background to compress the file size of the different platforms required for live streaming such as video, recording and presentations.”

He believes that by utilising livestreamed training it can result in a major cost reduction for owners with 80% of normal training costs accounted for by travel, accommodation, expenses and room hire.

Related:The future of maritime training – micro and just-in-time learning

The difficulty in offering and arranging shorebased training due to the coronavirus is also driving interest from shipowners and managers.

“Our initial talks with ship owners, ship management companies and ship registries has shown a massive problem with shore-based training now and into the future because coronavirus,” he said.

“There is a real need to adapt training to the new normal of restricted movement and travel and this is a big problem that our deal with Inmarsat solves. Seafarers no longer have to travel. They can do a lot of the training while still at sea via desktop, tablet or phone with sessions broadcast from our studios in Liverpool and India, which will soon be supplemented by studios we are looking to open in America and Singapore. “