We met with Delmar Academy General Manager Captain Arda Akyüz, who said: “As Delmar Academy, we want to not only meet current needs but also establish the future education models by utilizing our country’s human potential, knowledge base, and technology. If we act together, we have a chance to become a center that does not remain dependent on external sources; on the contrary, one that influences the world, sets the rules, and defines standards. We believe in this, we work for this, we invest for this.” Underlining that Delmar’s main goal is not merely to comply with rules, Akyüz emphatically states that if our country stands united, it can become the side that sets the standards.
Shall we begin our conversation with what the highlights are in Delmar Academy’s 2025 training calendar?
The year 2025 was a very valuable year for Delmar Academy in terms of content diversity, international compliance, and domestic capacity development. At the beginning of the year, based on Marine Fire Safety reports and increasing demands, we announced our TOFIN (Total Firefighting in Inspection) training. As of January, we trained and certified over 30 service engineers in onboard fire safety. The participants did not just receive certificates; they also continued to be regularly supported through our system with inspection, requirement, and performance tracking.
Furthermore, our trainings within the scope of ISO 23678 – MSC.402(96) continued without slowing down. With both our Initial, Level I and Level II courses, over 180 service engineers are now conducting inspections and writing certificates at different points around the world. As a significant step, we adapted and started implementing the ‘lifting appliances inspection’ trainings, which will become mandatory from January 1, 2026, according to MSC.532(107), into our curriculum as of 2025. At this point, we specifically want to emphasize this: Thanks to our country’s domestic and national human power, engineering capacity, and technological potential, we have the opportunity to be not just the follower in this field, but the side that sets the rules. However, for this, we must work shoulder to shoulder, especially with shipyards, owner companies, and service providers, and transform our knowledge and experience into mutual benefit. Otherwise, we will remain externally dependent and will only manage to follow solutions produced abroad.
Another topic that enriched our calendar was Practical First Aid compliant with MLC and STCW. We conducted the first application in cooperation with YMN Tanker. In this field where awareness is still developing, we can use our domestic human resources more effectively and raise participation to much higher levels in a short time by increasing cooperation with the industry. Because our goal here is not only to comply with international regulations but also for our country to develop its own human potential and produce its own solutions.
Additionally, our visibility in international networks increased with our INTERTANKO and INTERCARGO memberships. The ‘digital twin’ project we are conducting with ITU Maritime Faculty will both shorten training durations and reinforce the learning culture with digital tools. These studies are actually the most current example of how quickly our country can progress on the path to digitalization and that it has the power to develop its own original solutions. In short, 2025 was a profitable year in terms of training and content. However, the real value is to make our country a brand in this field with our domestic and national technology, our human power, and our university-industry collaborations. We, as Delmar Academy, are ready to do our best and use our own resources to the fullest.
From now on, what is important is for the sector stakeholders to act together. Because the choice is very clear: either we will remain dependent on foreign sources and be out of the game, or we will stand shoulder to shoulder and establish the game together.
To which areas have your trainings, which were initially aimed at technical staff, reached today? What were the main factors driving this change?
At the founding of Delmar Academy, our focus was to provide specialized training in LSA (lifeboats, davits, release gear) and FFE (fire-fighting systems) areas, especially for service engineers and technical staff. Our courses compliant with ISO 23678 and MSC.402(96) concentrated on technical areas such as annual and five-year maintenance processes, the application of manufacturer manuals, and audit reporting. Today, however, our trainings are not limited only to technical staff. Thanks to the familiarization packages we have developed for newly hired personnel, interns, and junior officers, we are reaching a much wider audience with our safety culture and operational awareness trainings. Furthermore, with the MLC and STCW compliant Practical First Aid program, we provide training that covers not only engineers but all professionals on board the ship. In parallel, our modules such as work safety, PPE use, and emergency awareness also constitute an important resource for HSEQ managers and operational support teams.
There are 3 main factors behind this change:
While we adopt this approach, we particularly want to emphasize this: with our country’s domestic and national human power, brain power, and engineering accumulation, it is actually possible not only to adapt but to lead this transformation. However, for this, we need to further strengthen the cooperation between shipowners, shipyards, service providers, and academia. If we act together, we can become a country that not only follows the world but sets the game. Otherwise, we will be content with following foreign-dependent solutions and will not be able to sufficiently utilize the great potential we have.
As Delmar Academy, how do you align your training content with global standards? What is your strategy regarding international accreditations, collaborations, or methodological approaches?
In the maritime sector, compliance with international standards is not only a necessity but also the cornerstone of our training strategy. As Delmar Academy, we update all our content in light of the reports, guides, and announcements published by organizations such as IMO, ILO, EMSA, and AMSA. This allows us to be prepared not only for current regulations but also for standards that will come into effect in the future.
Our biggest advantage here is the continuous cooperation we carry out with the academics of ITU Maritime Faculty. When the methodological and scientific perspective of the academics is combined with our field experience and our extensive service engineer network, our trainings gain a multidimensional structure covering both technical and human factors. Our courses within the scope of ISO 23678 and MSC.402(96) are designed to cover not only technical requirements but also decision-making processes, communication, and awareness skills.
Furthermore, thanks to our INTERTANKO and INTERCARGO memberships, we are part of global quality management ecosystems. These memberships provide us not only with the opportunity to stay up-to-date but also with the chance to bring international best practices to our country and integrate them into our trainings.
In addition, we are building a continuous knowledge sharing culture through voluntary seminars, our conference contributions, and TÜBİTAK projects.
Another dimension of our strategy is our digitalization investments. With the digital twin applications and e-learning platforms we have developed, we are making our training shorter, more accessible, and more sustainable. This is not just about keeping up with global trends; it is also proof that our country can develop next-generation solutions with its own manpower and technology. Who has participated in your training programs to date? Does your participant profile consist more of industry professionals, or students and recent graduates?
As Delmar Academy, we initially designed our training with a greater focus on service engineers and field personnel. Even today, a large part of our participants consists of engineers from authorized service providers, and our LSA and FFE training, in particular, is in high demand from this group. However, as of 2025, we have expanded our scope by strengthening our infrastructure and instructor staff. Thanks to new modules like TOFIN (onboard fire safety) and Practical First Aid, we can now also reach trainees, maritime faculty students, and junior officers. In this way, we have created a more balanced training profile that encompasses both professionals with field experience and young people just starting their careers. The diversity of our participant profile is not limited to our country alone. We host trainees from a wide geography, from Asia to Europe. In fact, four service engineers from Trinidad & Tobago successfully completed our ISO 23678 – MSC.402(96) training and received their certificates. These examples show that the content we prepare is internationally recognized and that the training capacity developed in our country is opening up to the world.
Our vision for the future is to further expand this profile. We are preparing to launch our training programs for class societies, surveyors, and different maritime actors. Especially thanks to our digitalization investments, we encourage continuous learning by offering our participants a friendly competitive environment. Through gamification elements, badges, a coin system, and international rankings, we are building a community of participants who not only receive certificates but also continue their development, increase their awareness, and prove themselves. In short, Delmar Academy has today become a training center that encompasses both experienced industry professionals, as well as students and new graduates. We aim to strengthen this structure with our country’s domestic and national human potential, and by bringing it together with international participants, to make our country a leading center in maritime safety training.
In group training conducted with lifeboats and fast rescue boats, what scenarios do the students face? How do you evaluate the contribution of these practical trainings to the maritime sector?
At the heart of practical training at Delmar Academy is the development of not only participants’ technical skills, but also their operational awareness and human-element-focused reflexes. For example, in “man overboard” scenarios, mannequins filled with immersion suits are placed in a specific area. Participants are expected to launch the boat quickly, complete the checks, and perform the rescue operation within a set time. Similarly, emergency scenarios such as confined space entries are also practiced.
In these trainings, our instructors are not merely observers; they sometimes step into the role of a PSC inspector, other times a chief officer, creating a real environment. Thus, our participants do not just become those “performing drills,” but also professionals who have to make decisions under real conditions.
These kinds of practices respond to a need also confirmed by international reports. LSA and FFE deficiencies are consistently in the top five in PSC inspections every year. This picture actually shows how critical an area we are training in. Our approach is not only to introduce the equipment; it is also to make participants feel firsthand in the field the challenges arising from human factors such as time pressure, stress, communication problems, and lack of equipment knowledge. In this way, when graduate students or young engineers encounter these situations in their first assignment, they can say, “I experienced this at Delmar.” We hold regular meetings with our participants after the training and monitor their progress. Feedback clearly reveals that a direct bridge is built between their field experiences and what they learned in the trainings.
The most important contribution of all these processes is to make our country’s human resources more prepared, more conscious, and more competent. If we do not conduct these practices in our own centers, we remain dependent on external sources; we have to follow ready-made programs developed in other countries. However, here, with our domestic and national manpower, we produce scenarios that stem from our own needs and respond to real operational deficiencies. This provides both service engineers and the officers of the future with the qualifications expected by the industry. Therefore, these practical trainings increase the strength not only of individuals but also of our sector. If we act together with shipowner companies, shipyards, and service providers; we will not only address the current deficiencies but also ensure that our country becomes a pioneering and independent center in maritime training.
Finally, as Delmar Academy, how do you evaluate individual or corporate custom training requests? How do you shape and implement the training content according to these requests?
At Delmar Academy, our most fundamental principle is to be able to produce customized solutions suitable for the needs of every participant and every institution. Therefore, whether it is an individual service engineer or a large shipowner company or shipyard; we carefully evaluate every request and adapt our training content accordingly. We have standard courses within the scope of ISO 23678, MSC.402(96), or STCW; but when necessary, we customize them, expand the scenarios, and add new modules.
For corporate requests, we directly reflect the companies’ operational realities into the training programs. For example, if training is being provided for a specific fleet or shipyard, we highlight that institution’s priority risk areas and include their equipment in the training scenarios. This way, participants gain not only general knowledge but also practical skills for the concrete situations they will encounter in their own work areas. For individual requests, we design personalized learning paths that take into account the career goals and competency levels of service engineers, aiming to elevate them to higher levels.
An important point needs to be emphasized here: If we do not meet these special requests in our own centers, with our domestic and national manpower and technology; industry players will be forced to seek solutions again in centers abroad.
However, we have both academic capacity, field experience, and technological infrastructure. To use this more effectively, it is essential that we are in stronger cooperation with shipowner companies, shipyards, classification societies, and service providers.
In closing, I can say this: As Delmar Academy, we aim not only to meet current needs; but also to build the future’s education models by utilizing our country’s human potential, knowledge, and technology. If we act together, we have a chance to become a center that does not remain dependent on foreign sources; on the contrary, one that guides the world, sets the game, and defines standards. We believe in this, we work for this, we invest in this.
