Deck Watchkeeper Oral exam 22-05-24

Examiner: John gates

Face to face exam - Townsville

◦ What are the objectives of ISM code

◦ ISPS levels
◦ What’s in the vessels SMS?
◦ Name some certificates you would find in the bridge
◦ What’s the general validity of certs?
◦ Are there any that aren’t five years validity?
◦ Marine orders? Name some important ones?
◦ Which marine order is MLC
◦ Your signing onto a vessel as second officer, where would you find your list of safety
equipment on board? How would you know how many life jackets the vessel is required to
have?
◦ What’s an EEBD and where would you find it? How long does the air supply last for
roughly?
◦ Got a chart out, he was pointing to multiple symbols, lights, soundings, type of bottom etc
◦ Gave me two positions and got me to plot two waypoints, while he went out to make a
coffee I completed this as I would a normal passage plan, so put the course and distance and
P.I lines which he liked.
◦ variation of the chart? What is it for the current year?
◦ What is the datum of that chart
◦ When was it updated to? What is the last correction number? How do you know if this chart
is up to date?
◦ As a second officer coming up on the bridge what are you going to do when you take over
the watch? (He didn’t want to hear ‘checklists’) he wanted to know practically what you are
going to do
◦ How and for what reason do we take compass error?
◦ What sort of messages do you receive via EGC? What is contained in maritime safety info?
◦ Went through the differences of sea stabilised and ground stabilised radar,
◦ Can you use ECDIS for collision avoidance
◦ Can you use ECDIS for your primary needs of navigation
◦ Pulled out laminated screen shots of ECDIS screens, looked at different chart symbols, what
are the five compulsory alarms? What are some other alarms?
◦ What are the different modes of the BNWAS
◦ When should it be on?
◦ Moved into passage planning
◦ 4 stages of passage planning, APEM- went through each section. This went on for a bit but
once he heard certain words or key points he said move on
◦ What are some publications you will find on the bridge?
◦ How do you set a pilot ladder up? I went through multiple requirements for the pilot ladder,
does it actually need the bottom four steps to be rubber? Why are they rubber? We went
pretty deep in the pilot ladder requirements
◦ Pilot on the bridge, what’s his role on board? What’s the relationship? going through the
GBR he asks you to alter course to 130” but the correct course to steer is 120’ - what do you
do? What is your obligation?
◦ Pulled out laminated photos of load lines and draft marks, what’s the draft?
◦ What are load lines for?
◦ Going from SW - FW and vice versa what happens to your draft?
◦ Named three formulas for your loadlines then we moved on
◦ Stability conditions, AOL - how to fix/How to get out of AOL?
◦ Free surface effect what does it do to stability?
◦ Movements of G
◦ What are the three types of cargo?
◦ Which code do bulk carriers adhere to?
◦ Went into the two types of BA equipment positive and negative pressure masks
◦ What’s ships would you use positive pressure masks?
◦ What are you doing whilst on cargo watch? What will you be checking throughout your
watch, practically
◦ Laminated A4 Radar plots with multiple scenarios, RV, Clear Vis, overtaking situations,
crossing situations
◦ Explain what lights a towing vessel, Ram, NUC, Vessel aground has, arc of visibility and
range as well as day shapes and sound signals.
◦ Explain rule 5 in your own words, how are you practically keeping a safe lookout in the
bridge?
◦ Definitions of RAM? And NUC? What is an exceptional circumstance?
◦ Explain rule 2 in your own words
◦ Rule 19 explain
◦ Rule 10 explain
Then got the news I passed, was bloody over the moon.
John gates is a tough examiner but also fair, he has a relaxed settings in his exams, I believe it
was much better in person. Although there are things you go more into depth with, than what
you would do in the online scenario. I failed the exam a few times, my biggest advice is to
not give up and change the type of study and your approach if it’s not working for you. By
failing a few times I also learnt a lot more on those things I failed on, and saw it as a positive
(definitely had tough days too).
I used Whitehorse Maritime academy in the UK and some of their Aussie Tutors which are
still sailing Masters to help get me across the line. This also helped having someone to blast
you with questions.