Entry & progression
Class 1 is where you carry the department. The competences in this module are the STCW A-III/2 management-level ones. Module 1 is what AMSA will test you on. This is what the job will test you on.
The chief engineer is the head of the engineering department. Everything that turns, burns, pumps, cools or generates is yours: the plant, the people who run it, the spares that keep it running, the records that prove it. The master commands the vessel. You command the machinery. Where those two meet is where most engineering careers are made or ruined.
Who decides what
| Question | Whose call |
|---|---|
| Where the vessel goes, and when | Master |
| What power, and for how long, is safely available | Chief engineer |
| Whether to sail with a defect | Master decides - on the chief's honest advice |
| Whether to shut down a main engine at sea | Chief - but never without telling the master first |
| Overall safety of the vessel and everyone on board | Master's overriding authority |
That table is the whole relationship. Your job is not to decide whether the yacht sails. Your job is to make sure the master decides with the truth in front of him. A master who learns about a defect from the alarm panel, from the charterer, or from a surveyor has been failed by his chief.
NOTE — Your number two is the first engineer In Australia, the officer performing the STCW second engineer functions is called the first engineer. He or she runs the day-to-day: the watch bill, the planned maintenance, the bunkering plan, the discipline of the department. A chief who tries to do the first engineer's job ends up doing neither.
Standing orders and the written word
Write standing orders for the engine room and keep them current. They should say, at a minimum: when to call the chief without hesitation; the parameters that must never be exceeded and what to do if they are; who may start, stop or change over machinery; how unattended machinery space duty is handed over; and what must be logged. The engine room log is a legal record. It is written contemporaneously, in ink, and it is not tidied up afterwards.
Advice the master does not want to hear
Sooner or later you will have to tell a master, an owner or a charter broker that the vessel is not going anywhere. Do it early, do it in writing, and do it with numbers: what has failed, what the consequence is, what you propose, how long it will take, and what the risk is if the advice is not taken. Vague warnings get overruled. Specific ones get acted on.
And when the master overrules you anyway - as he is entitled to on the employment of the vessel - record your advice, record the decision, and get on with making the plant as safe as it can be made. Sulking is not a professional position. A written record is.
TIP — The department is people, not machines You will spend more of your time on the first, the second, the ETO and the greasers than on any engine. Train them deliberately. Give them the job that stretches them while you can still stand behind them. The measure of a chief is what the department does at 0300 when he is asleep.