“Youngsters first!” chimes in Captain Pradeep Chawla, chivalrously allowing his friend of over 20 years, Captain Vikrant Gusain, to lead the introductions.
“Though, I’m a 28-year-old in the body of a 68-year-old!” Chawla added, with both chuckling away.
Both had long seafaring careers but became friends in Hong Kong after coming ashore in the early 90s.
Now Chawla is heading a seafarer microlearning platform, MarinePALS, that seeks to rethink seafarer training and mentoring through bite-sized training packages known as microlearning, using gaming apps and virtual reality.
Gusain heads ship manager Dockendale, which this month launches its Mumbai training institute in collaboration with MarinePALS.
While they revel in each other’s company as they sit down to discuss their training plans with TradeWinds, it was not pleasure that brought them to work together, they both explained.
“During Covid, we all realised that we can’t get people into the classroom … that youngsters don’t like to read books and are glued to their mobile phones … and that attention spans were reducing,” Chawla said.
“I saw Captain Chawla stepping up … I could see the passion towards the well-being of the seafarers, their development and training,” Gusain added.
Dockendale first rolled out the training platform to 20 vessels in mid-2024 and will extend it to another 20 ships by mid-2025, and its entire fleet of 65 vessels by the end of the year.
To date, the results have been impressive, according to Gusain.
Dockendale said there has been a 30% improvement in the fleet’s port state control performance, and it is a top performer in the Risk4Sea Top PSC Performers in January 2025.
Gusain attributes this turnaround, in part at least, to the gamification of training through the use of virtual reality that resonates with “Gen Zs”.
One game invites seafarers to take on the role of PSC inspectors, identifying defects on a virtual ship, Chawla explained.
“That is training their eyes without them going to a classroom and sitting in boring formats of PSC control procedure. This is what you’re going to do in real life.”
Gusain explained that Dockendale has also been using similar programmes tailored to logging carriage, as trade is “quite difficult these days”.
And while the pandemic has passed, he said the need for bite-sized, practical training has never been more pressing with the arrival of alternative fuels, to which the Mumbai facility is to dedicate space.
Captain Pradeep Chawla started sailing in 1974 with Shipping Corp and then joined Anglo Eastern in 1985 as a chief officer.
He came onshore in 1992 continuing at Anglo Eastern in Hong Kong, where he first started developing MarinePALS, which incidentally ended up being his first client once he left.
He said: “I retired on 30 June 2023 and on 1 July, I started MarinePals!”
Meanwhile, Captain Vikrant Gusain spent 15 years sailing with Univan Ship Management and had a 19-year stint in Hong Kong once onshore with Univan and Fleet Management
He said: “So that’s how I know Captain Chawla so well”.
Dockendale then became MarinPALS’ second client in November 2023.
He cites the European Union Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) and International Maritime Organization targets as posing fresh training hurdles.
“We are preparing the crew for alternate fuels. The newbuilding orders are now increasing.
“Until now, nobody was worried. But now the EU ETS is a reality.
“For us as companies, we’re positioning to be in alignment with monitoring [carbon emissions] and also creating awareness among the crew, keeping them safe for this change.”
Chawla explained the shift in focus in the training he produces when it comes to greener fuels.
LNG basic level training currently involves digesting a 138-page code over a five-day course, he said.
“What does that seafarer need to know?” he asked. “It’s all about safety when taking LNG as a bunkering fuel on my ship.
“What is the point at which I need to press the emergency stop button?
“What are the scenarios that I need to be able to handle in an emergency that’s critical?”
Chawla said identifying these action points could be achieved through several short videos before a cargo or bunkering operation and repeated when needed.
“It’s engaging. You can’t expect people to go back again and do a five-day refresher course. That’s never going to happen.
“That’s when micro-learning comes in and helps people be conscious of the most important thing, which is safety.”
Being responsive to shifting training needs and safety emergencies within the industry is also something MarinePals prides itself in.
The company has been able to quickly create and distribute videos for crew members on the back of, for instance, rising enclosed space fatalities or engine blackouts.
Chief executive Pradeep Chawla said: “When the Dali happened, we had three videos out within two months which were all about how to prevent blackouts … we didn’t wait for the final investigation report, because, based on my experience of having seen blackouts on other ships, we could put two and two together.”
Net zero ‘noise’
Chawla said his packages sought to focus on the practical rather than complex technical details or the “noise” around net-zero targets.
“If I am taking LNG as a fuel on my ship, I need my crew to be 100% safe, I can’t be bothered about the planet’s targets. My target is the safety of my ship and my crew.
“Safety training is the most important focus that we need to continue to have, irrespective of whatever else is happening with the IMO, [net-zero] targets or the maritime plans in various countries.”
So, can the industry train and certify its 800,000 seafarers by the mid-2030s to operate vessels using zero or near-zero emission fuels?
“No, it’s not farfetched … can we get everybody certified? Yeah, I’m pretty sure the world will have everybody with a nice piece of paper.
“But do they have the experience? No, they don’t,” Chawla said.(Copyright)
