Entry & progression
The COI states how many credentialed engineers the vessel must carry — and 46 CFR 15.825(d) states who decides that number: the OCMI. As chief, you are the person who has to make the plant match the paperwork.
The Certificate of Inspection
For an inspected vessel, the COI is the operating licence. It states what the vessel is, what it may do, where it may go, how many people it may carry, and the crew it must have aboard to do any of it. The engineering crew requirement on the face of that certificate is not advisory.
- 46 CFR 15.105(c): the COI "complements the statutory requirements but does not supersede them." You must satisfy both.
- 46 CFR 15.825(d): the OCMI determines the minimum number of credentialed engineers required for the safe operation of inspected vessels.
- 46 CFR 15.105(d): an uninspected vessel on an international voyage may be issued a safe manning certificate.
- A foreign-flag yacht carries the flag state's Minimum Safe Manning Document instead. Different document, same function, different administration.
CAUTION — Survey cycles, class and flag requirements are not in this course The intervals, scopes and categories of statutory and class surveys — annual, intermediate, renewal, docking — and the specific items each one covers depend on the vessel's flag, its class society, its service and its certificates. Those requirements are not in this course's verified source base, and it will not state them.
Get your survey schedule from the vessel's certificates, the class society and the flag administration. Get the USCG inspection position from the OCMI for your zone. Get your endorsement requirements from the NMC.
What actually gets looked at in the machinery space
Whatever the regime, the questions asked of an engineering department are recognisably the same ones. They are also the questions you should be asking yourself every week:
- Does the safety equipment work? Fire pumps, emergency fire pump, fixed suppression systems, quick-closing valves, remote stops, emergency generator, emergency lighting, bilge system. Tested — with the test recorded.
- Do the alarms and trips work? Not "are they fitted". Do they operate, and can you prove when they were last proved?
- Is the plant in the condition the records say it is? A PMS that does not match the machinery is a finding, and it is a finding about your honesty as much as your engineering.
- Are the records complete, contemporaneous and truthful? Engineering log, Oil Record Book, PMS history, defect list, test records.
- Is the space itself safe? Housekeeping, guarding, lagging, oil leaks, lighting, and escape routes that are actually clear.
TIP — Oil leaks and lagging are the two findings you can eliminate for free Oil on hot surfaces is the classic engine-room fire. It is also the first thing any competent inspector looks at, because it is visible from the top plate. A clean, dry, properly lagged machinery space tells an inspector what kind of department this is before a single record has been opened.
Preparing for an inspection, honestly
The only defensible preparation is to run the department so that an unannounced inspection would find nothing you did not already know about and were not already addressing. That means an accurate defect list, a truthful PMS, records that match reality, and a chief engineer who is not surprised by anything on his own ship.
The alternative — cleaning up, hiding the defect list, back-filling records — fails in two different ways. It usually fails immediately, because inspectors have seen it all before. And when it succeeds, it leaves you operating machinery that everybody now believes is fine.