Navy Reserve Officers Training Corps (NROTC) Midshipman 1st Class James Olsen, from Portland, Oregon, was named the 2018 NROTC National Ship-handler of the Year at Surface Warfare Officers School (SWOS) on Naval Station Newport, Rhode Island, August 16.

Olsen, a rising senior at George Washington University in Washington, D. C., competed against 15 other midshipmen from NROTC units across the country in the 3rd annual ship-handling competition for midshipmen using Naval Seamanship and Ship-handling Conning Officer Virtual Environment (NSS COVE I and III) simulators at SWOS.

"I feel very excited to have been given the opportunity to come up here to Newport and take part in this competition,” Olsen said.

Olsen, who is looking to join the Surface Warfare Officer (SWO) community after he commissions and graduates in the spring of 2019, said he didn’t have any experience operating the COVE simulators.

“We don’t have COVE at GWU, but I was lucky to experience ship handling on board ships during my midshipman summer cruises,” he said. “I got to work with some great junior officers who mentored me and allowed me drive the ship at night and even during an UNREP (underway replenishment).”

Originally conceived in 2000 by the Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR), Research and Development (R&D) effort, COVE has evolved into a robust ship-handling simulator, primarily used at SWOS Newport and at learning sites around the world for junior and senior surface warfare officers. COVE I simulators and training are now being implemented at NROTC units across the country.

“The NROTC Midshipman Ship-handling competition is a great opportunity for future Surface Warfare Officers to test their skills and apply their classroom knowledge in challenging scenarios offered through our simulators.” said Capt. Scott Robertson, SWOS commanding officer.  Robertson and his SWOS staff provide a continuum of professional education and training that prepares officers, enlisted engineers, and quartermasters to serve at sea.

The midshipmen were tested in evolutions including conning, or the passing of orders to the helm and engineering room, of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer pulling away from a pier, pulling alongside a replenishment ship underway and responding to a man over board scenario.

“I thought this was a really great learning opportunity,” said Midshipman 3rd Class Marisa Strobel, an incoming junior at Marquette University in Milwaukee, who is from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin. “I had no experience with NAV Class (Navigation) or using COVE. I’m not going to lie, it felt like a lot got dumped on me a little bit. But it forced me to live up to the challenge and step up.”

Strobel credited the SWOS staff for guiding and instructing her in handling the conning of a ship.

“All the lieutenants were super helpful, nice and unbelievably patient,” she said.

U. S. Navy Lt. Jevon Page, one of the instructors who mentored the midshipmen during the week, said he thought holding the ship handling competition at SWOS was a great chance to work on ship handling skills and studying the “Rules of the Road” of driving a ship at sea.

“I hope they take away that SWOS is serious about training and we want them to be the best junior officers when they go out to the fleet,” Page said.

According to Robertson, the SWOS staff has been working with Naval Service Training Command (NSTC), which supports the NROTC program, to host the annual NROTC Ship-handler of the Year competition. He said that SWOS is also working with Rear Adm. Mike Bernacchi, commander of NSTC, and his staff, to provide expertise as COVE I simulators are installed at NROTC units.  NSTC has recently installed several COVEs at Officer Training Command at Naval Station Newport for Officer Candidate School OCS) students that NSTC also supports.

“SWOS looks forward to continuing our relationship with NSTC and Navy ROTC units as we strive to develop tomorrow’s ship-handlers,” Robertson said.

The competition for the midshipmen was set up over three days. The first two days were hands-on training with the simulators and tutoring from SWOS instructors as well as classroom study and lectures.

For the actual competition, the midshipmen were given a Rules of the Road/Ship-handling/Basic Seamanship 50-question exam. They each were then placed into one of 18 COVE I stations. Midshipmen wore virtual reality headsets and were assigned as the conning officers on a bridge of an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. With the virtual reality headsets, the midshipmen could look anywhere, port or starboard, forward and astern, as if they are looking out the windows on a bridge or standing on a bridge wing. The midshipmen would then call out a series of maneuvering orders for the engine room and helm. Each midshipman practiced conning their virtual ship through several different scenarios; pulling away from a dock with the assist of a tugboat in San Diego harbor, driving the ship off the coast of San Diego, pulling alongside an oiler for an underway replenishment, and maneuvering the ship during a man overboard scenario. They were then tested on what they learned and practiced.

After the exam and testing on COVE 1, the SWOS instructors tallied up points and named four finalists. On the final day, the finalists were taken into a COVE III station. The COVE III stations have the same functionality as the COVE 1 stations, except they are viewed on three 50-inch video displays to allow the student a wider visual outlook. Again, they were tested and scored on their conning of the ship from the dock and into San Diego Harbor, and how well they maneuvered the ship during an underway replenishment and man overboard.

“I’m definitely going to go back to talk to my unit staff at George Washington and share this experience and tell them about the benefits of having and using COVE,” said Olsen, who was presented his NROTC Ship-handler of the Year trophy by U. S. Navy Capt. David Wright, State University of New York (SUNY) Maritime College NROTC commanding officer, in front of the other competing midshipmen.

NROTC was established to develop midshipmen mentally, morally and physically and to imbue them with the highest ideals of duty, loyalty and Navy core values. The mission of NROTC is to commission college graduates as naval officers who possess a basic professional background, are motivated toward careers in the naval service and have a potential for future development in mind and character so as to assume the highest responsibilities of command, citizenship and government.

NROTC is supported by Bernacchi and his NSTC staff at Naval Station Great Lakes, Illinois, and Naval Air Station Pensacola, Florida. Along with the NROTC program NSTC supports 98 percent of initial officer and enlisted accessions training for the Navy, as well as the Navy’s Citizenship Development program.

NSTC includes Recruit Training Command (RTC), the Navy’s only boot camp, at Naval Station Great Lakes; the NROTC program at more than 75 universities; OTC; and Navy Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps (NJROTC) and Navy National Defense Cadet Corps (NNDCC) citizenship development programs at more than 600 high schools worldwide.

For more information about NROTC, visit http://www.navy.mil/local/greatlakes/, http://www.netc.navy.mil/nstc/, or http://www.facebook.com/NavalServiceTraining/.

For more information about the Surface Warfare Officers School, visit http://www.netc.navy.mil/centers/swos/.

Get more information about the Navy from US Navy at http://www.navy.mil, facebook or twitter.