Entry & progression
More engineers have gone to prison for what they wrote in a book than for anything they did to an engine. The Oil Record Book is the most dangerous document on the vessel, and it is yours.
A discharge may have happened in international waters, beyond a coastal State's jurisdiction. But the book sails into port. And a false statement made to a port State inspector, in that port, in that book, is an offence committed there — which the coastal State can and does prosecute. That is the mechanism. It has caught hundreds of engineers who thought the ocean was the offence.
Oil Record Book Part I — machinery space operations
| Code | Operation |
|---|---|
| A | Ballasting or cleaning of oil fuel tanks |
| B | Discharge of dirty ballast or cleaning water from oil fuel tanks |
| C | Collection and disposal of oil residues (sludge) |
| D | Non-automatic discharge overboard, or disposal otherwise, of bilge water |
| E | Automatic discharge overboard, or disposal otherwise, of bilge water |
| F | Condition of the oil filtering equipment |
| G | Accidental or exceptional discharges of oil |
| H | Bunkering of fuel or bulk lubricating oil |
How it must be kept
- Each completed operation is entered without delay, and signed by the officer in charge of that operation
- Each completed page is signed by the master
- Entries in English, or with an English translation, on a ship holding an international certificate
- Retained on board and available for inspection — and kept for three years after the last entry
- Never erase. Never overwrite. Never tear a page out. A correction is a single line through the error, the correct entry beside it, initialled and dated. That is all
WARNING — Sign nothing you did not do, see, or verify Your signature against an entry is a statement that the operation happened as described. It is the point at which the ship's paperwork becomes your personal criminal exposure.
If the chief engineer asks you to sign for a transfer you did not witness, or for a quantity you cannot verify, or for sludge you know went over the side — do not sign. You are not protecting him. You are joining him.
The sludge tank does not lie. Sludge is generated at a predictable rate from fuel consumed, and inspectors calculate it. A sludge tank that never fills is a confession.
The sludge balance
Purifiers, filters and drains generate residues in proportion to the fuel you burn. That volume has to appear somewhere: in the sludge tank, in an incinerator log, or on a shore reception receipt. Keep the receipts. They are the cheapest defence available to you and they cost nothing but a folder.
CAUTION — The Australian instrument and its penalties MARPOL Annex I is international. The specific Australian legislation giving it effect, and the penalties for a false Oil Record Book entry in Australia, were not verified for this course. They exist and they are enforced. Confirm with AMSA. Note also that in a port State inspection, the ORB is one of the first books an inspector will ask for.
Keep the book truthfully and it is a shield. Keep it any other way and it is the prosecution's best exhibit — written, signed and dated, in your own hand.