Entry & progression
A chief plans work he will not be aboard to finish. Rotation, refit and the five-year class cycle all outrun any one man's tour. The department's memory is the documents you leave behind.
The chief owns the engineering budget. Two kinds of money move through it. Operating expenditure is what the plant consumes to run: fuel, lubricants, chemicals, consumables, routine spares, service technicians, waste disposal. Capital expenditure is what replaces or upgrades: a new generator, a re-bladed turbocharger, an overhauled gearbox, a bow thruster. Owners understand capex - it is visible. They are far less patient with opex, which is invisible until it stops.
The argument you have to win
Every chief eventually has to justify money for something that has not broken. The way to win it is not indignation; it is evidence. Trend data. Oil analysis. Running hours against the maker's overhaul interval. The cost of the planned job now, against the cost of the unplanned job in August with a full guest list and a two-week lead time on the part. Put the two numbers side by side and the argument usually makes itself.
Spares and lead times
- Know the lead time, not just the price. A cheap part six weeks away is an expensive part.
- Hold the critical spares the flag, class and SMS require - and know why each one is on the list.
- Watch obsolescence. On a twenty-year-old yacht it is the control system, not the engine, that you will not be able to buy.
- Keep the inventory honest. A spares list that lies is worse than no list, because you will plan around it.
Dry dock
A docking is the one window in which the underwater body, the shafts, the seals, the propellers, the sea valves, the anodes, the thrusters and the tanks are all accessible at once. It is also the one window in which everything costs three times what it should. Both facts follow from the same cause: the yard is expensive and the work list is finite, so the specification is everything.
Building a docking specification
- Start it the day you leave the last dock. Keep a running list all cycle; a spec written in the last month is a spec full of surprises.
- Anchor it to the survey cycle. Class items, tailshaft, tank inspections and statutory renewals have dates. They set the window - not the owner's diary.
- Write each item so a stranger can price it. What, where, how many, to what standard, and what the acceptance criterion is.
- Separate the certain from the conditional. "Open and inspect; renew if outside limits" is a different item from "renew", and yards price them very differently.
- Book long-lead items before you book the dock. The dock will wait for nothing.
- Budget for growth work. A docking always finds something. Allow for it, or it will come out of the work you actually needed.
TIP — Write the handover you would want to receive Plant condition and running hours. Open defects, with dates. Deferred work, and why. Conditions of class and their expiry. Spares ordered and where they are. What you were about to do next, and why. On rotation this document is the department's continuity - and it is the single most reliable signal of a professional chief.