How long does it take to bring a container ship to a standstill and how narrow a curve can she drive without tipping over? You can investigate questions like these with the ship handling simulator. If you want to steer a ship into a ports entrance with a disturbing side current, you can easily ram an embankment or an oncoming ship. Fortunately, since you simply have to press "Reset" in the simulator, such an accident does not cost a lot of money or even human lives as it would in reality.
That is why real helmsmen practice these situations on simulators intensively before their first real trip. In addition to many interesting ship maneuvers, training on the simulator provides experience of physical facts that influence the behavior of ships.