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An airlift that spans the West Coast Highway is now all that separates the boating and marine students of Orange Coast College from the classroom to the ocean.
The school held a groundbreaking ceremony on Friday morning for its $ 22 million professional sailor training center.
The two-story building, located on the north side of the freeway in Newport Beach, features classrooms and laboratories, a radar training room, a conference room, and a student lounge.
It also houses a full mission bridge simulator, which includes 10 vertically oriented screens and is valued at around $ 500,000.
It connects via the skyway to the college harbor sailing and rowing hub, as part of the OCC Waterfront campus. The intercollegiate rowing and sailing base was renamed Waterfront Campus in April.
“This is shifting the area of ​​community sailors and sailing safety programs to more commercial training,†said Jim Moreno, district board chair of Coast Community College.
“We have a great vocational training education mission for the district on all of our campuses. But above all, it now brings a real specialized program to Orange Coast College for the training of seafarers. Industry over there, look around Newport, they’ve got these huge yachts. A lot of people are looking for crews and they want them to be certified. This installation will do that.
The Professional Sailor Training Center opened for students when classes resumed on August 30, said Sarah Hirsch, Director of the Waterfront Campus.
In addition to Moreno, Hirsch and OCC President Dr Angelica Suarez, Friday’s groundbreaking ceremony brought together local politicians such as Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery, State Senator Dave Min, MP State Cottie Petrie-Norris and Orange County Supervisor Katrina Foley.
On Friday, a radar training room equipped with the latest maritime technologies will be on display at the Professional Sailor Training Center at Orange Coast College.
(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)
The 12,000-foot training center, inaugurated in September 2019, was funded by the M.
Suarez said this was one of five projects Orange Coast College was able to complete during the coronavirus pandemic.
“It opens up the possibilities for students who might not otherwise have thought of a career as a sailor,†Suarez said.
“The simple fact that our students can learn through a multitude of scenarios – navigation, strategy – I think it’s phenomenal. All they have to do, once they have the skills here through this training, is take a short walk across this bridge that connects our two locations and actually put those skills on. [in use] in the water, using the more than 40 vessels available to us. It’s just a nice connection.
Waterfront Campus Director Sarah Hirsch, Community College District Board Chair Jim Moreno, Administrator Mary Hornbuckle, Administrator Dave Grant, President of Orange Coast College, Dr. Angela Suarez, Chancellor John Weispfenning and Newport Beach Mayor Brad Avery meet at the Orange Coast College Professional Mariner Training Center ribbon-cutting ceremony on Friday.
(Don Leach / Staff Photographer)
Hirsch said the building does create a home for the academic portion of the school’s boating program, which shares resources with the community’s harbor boating program.
She enjoyed the early reactions to the Full Mission Bridge simulator, she said with a smile.
“Just seeing the faces of the students when they see it, it’s like, ‘Oh, is this here? Can we do this? ‘ Hirsch said.
“You know, we’ve heard comments from other programs like aviation where students get that simulator time. It really gives them a more real glimpse of what they might be doing.
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