Tyne Coast College

Tyne Coast College’s South Shields Marine School is a world-leading maritime training centre carrying out innovative work in a range of technical areas. The School’s expertise lies in creating high-tech digital scenarios that allow naval architects and civil engineers to design and safely implement multi-million-pound real-world projects.

The School attracts students from around the world and is unique in the UK – and one of only a handful of places in Europe – with capability across the full range of combined port engineering and operations, ship movements and computer modelling. Its advanced work includes the testing of drawing board plans submitted by shipping firms and naval architects, 3D and digital modelling of ports and harbours prior to construction, and the planning of ship movements and sea passage.

The School’s work gives extra assurance to large-scale port and shipping projects and, at the request of the Ministry of Defence, played a pivotal role in the construction of an exit path from Rosyth and passage to sea for trials of the Royal Navy’s two recently built carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. It has been involved in port development at Teesport, Orkney and at the Tyne and Humber entrances. It is also working with Kazakhstan State Oil on the development of wellhead, port and waterway facilities on the Caspian Sea, creating a marine access channel, cargo off-load facilities and turning space for barges.