Ship stability management sits at the heart of safe maritime operations. Crews must be able to understand how their vessels will behave across a wide range of settings, under both intact and damaged conditions, and in both routine operations and complex emergency situations. While stability principles are taught widely across the industry, the challenge has always been translating theory into confident, real-world decision-making. That’s where realistic training environments become crucial.

To help bridge the gap between theory and practice, NAPA has partnered with the Italian Maritime Academy Technologies (IMAT), one of the world’s largest maritime training centers, to deliver advanced stability training for seafarers both in person and remotely.

The collaboration brings together NAPA Stability with IMAT’s extensive simulator and training facilities to recreate the operational realities crews face at sea. This ensures the training program is not only accessible and convenient for more seafarers but also meets their needs. 

From theory in the classroom to using real operational scenarios 

At IMAT’s training center in Italy, hyper-realistic, hands-on training is the foundation of the learning experience. The facility spans more than 5,000 square meters and houses over 100 maritime simulators, enabling crews to practice complex operational scenarios in a controlled environment.

Through the partnership with NAPA, this environment now also incorporates the same stability-management tools that many officers will use onboard. This means that for the first time, NAPA Stability will be connected to the full operational simulation environment, including:

• A safety center
• A 40-metre navigation bridge built at full scale
• An engine control room
• A damage control system.

This means seafarers can experience how stability management interacts with other critical operational decisions, much like it would during real onboard situations. Rather than learning stability in isolation, crews can practice it as part of a broader operational context, enhancing overall safety for crew, passengers and vessels.

A partnership built on collaboration 

The partnership is built on more than two years of collaboration between NAPA and IMAT, with both organizations working closely to develop a training model that reflects the practical realities of the bridge.

A key milestone came in February 2026, when NAPA delivered an extensive ‘train the trainer’ program for IMAT instructors. The program certified IMAT trainers to deliver NAPA Stability training and introduced them to the platform’s full capabilities. NAPA also gains valuable insights from this collaboration into how stability tools are used in real-world training environments, which help shape the future development of onboard solutions.

Using NAPA Stability in a cloud-based environment allows IMAT to quickly adapt training scenarios to different vessel types and operational needs.

This flexibility is particularly important for a training center that works with many shipping companies and over 7,000 vessels.

Expanding the training ecosystem

While the initial focus of the program is on cruise vessel operations, the scope of the partnership is already expanding, with the next step extending the training offering to additional vessel types, including Ro-Ro and ferries.

Future training scenarios will look to incorporate a wider range of NAPA onboard digital tools, including NAPA Emergency Computer, NAPA Logbook and NAPA Checklist. By connecting these systems with simulator scenarios, crews will be able to practice a broader range of operational workflows, from voyage preparation and stability monitoring to emergency response. Using the full suite of NAPA digital tools is most valuable when crews understand how to use them confidently in operational contexts.

Raising the bar for maritime training

For IMAT, integrating NAPA software into its training ecosystem represents a step forward in creating highly realistic learning environments. As IMAT CEO, Erminia Della Monica and Founder, Captain Rosario Trapanese explain:

“IMAT is one of the largest maritime training centers and academies in the world, with one of the largest portfolios of vessels managed for training (over 7,000) for many of the major shipping companies. By including NAPA software in our training environment, we have created a unique and realistic operational setting for maritime training.”

As vessels become increasingly advanced and data-driven, crew training must evolve as well. Digital tools alone cannot improve safety. When combined with realistic training, they help ensure crews are fully prepared to use them when it matters most.

By bringing together technology, expertise and immersive training environments, the NAPA-IMAT partnership aims to do exactly that, helping crews turn stability knowledge into practical operational confidence.

Not just another software: NAPA makes seafarer training easy in a digital era

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