Entry & progression
Competence in this module follows STCW Code section A-III/1 — the standard the MO72 approved course must meet. This lesson is the watch handover: the two minutes that decide whether the next four hours are quiet.
Before you accept the watch
Do not accept a watch you have not walked. The relieving engineer arrives early enough to make a full round of the machinery spaces before taking over, not after. You are looking, listening and smelling — a leak you can smell is a leak you have not yet found.
The round before you take over
- Main engine — exhaust temperatures across the units, jacket and lube oil temperatures and pressures, scavenge condition, any unit running out of line
- Auxiliaries — which generators are on load, load sharing, standby set selected and ready
- Fuel — settling and service tank levels, which purifier is running, any transfer in progress and to which tank
- Bilges and tank levels — engine room bilge wells, sludge tank, ballast operations under way
- Alarms — anything inhibited, overridden, muted or standing. Ask why, and write it down
- Work in progress — isolations, lock-outs, permits, hot work, anything opened up
- Defects — what is broken, what is on standby, what has no standby
What the outgoing engineer must tell you
- The chief engineer's standing orders, and any night orders or specific instruction for this watch
- The bridge's intentions — manoeuvring, notice required, ETA, expected changes of speed
- Anything that has changed since the last watch, including anything that was fixed
- Anything that is being watched — a temperature creeping, a level falling, a noise
- The condition of the standby machinery, because the standby is the whole plan
WARNING — Do not take a watch you cannot keep, and do not hand one to someone who cannot keep it If the relieving engineer is unfit for duty — impaired, exhausted, ill — you do not hand over. You keep the watch and you call the chief engineer. This is not a judgement about a colleague. It is the rule, and it protects both of you.
Equally, if you arrive to relieve and the plant is in a condition you do not understand — a manoeuvre in progress, a critical operation half-completed — the handover waits until the operation is finished or you fully understand it.
The handover itself
Face to face. Out loud. Both of you looking at the panel. The outgoing engineer states the condition of the plant; the incoming engineer repeats back what matters. Then, and only then, the watch changes and it goes in the engine room log.
The failure mode is always the same: a leak, a level or an inhibited alarm known to one engineer and never spoken to the next. The machinery does not care which of you knew.
CAUTION — Australian watchkeeping requirements MO72 sets the certificate. The operational watchkeeping requirements for Australian vessels are given effect by Marine Orders not examined for this course. Confirm the applicable watchkeeping and hours-of-rest requirements with AMSA and with your vessel's safety management system.