In a recent initiative, the Numerical Offshore Tank Laboratory of the University of São Paulo (TPN-USP) established a research partnership with the Brazilian Maritime Pilots Association (CONAPRA) for the development and enhancement of a Maneuvering Simulation Center for port, rivers and offshore operations. The core simulator code is named SMH (Portuguese acronym for Maritime and Waterways Simulator) and it is an engineering tool used for the analysis of new operations in the Brazilian ports, in order to improve their efficiency in the context of the increasing oil and gas production and commercialization as well as the enhancement of international commercial trades. The accuracy of the mathematical model is an important requirement for a maneuvering simulator dedicated to engineering projects. The engineers, pilots and captains must rely on the dynamics of the simulator since it will be used to give answers to questions related to maneuvering analysis. The simulator can be used to evaluate new channels design, tugboats requirements, environmental window, DP system analyses, or even to define the maximum dimensions of vessels in an approach channel or basin, among others questions. Therefore, the joint work of the simulator development team and the pilots is crucial to obtain such a calibrated and reliable simulator, combining the local expertise of the pilots and their knowledge about ship handling and behavior in confined waters to the technical skills of the researchers. This paper will present the mathematical model adopted in the simulator and the calibration procedure based on results from sea-trials and pilots feedback. The tugboat operation both in vectorial and manned simulation models will also be detailed. A number of applications in Brazilian coast will be described, including ship-to-ship operations, analysis of the maneuvering of larger containerships in the existing infrastructure, evaluation of new terminals in design stage with unsheltered turning basin among others.