[esailor Team]

Stayed at the Dover Central Premier Inn the night before and moved up to the car park for the White Cliffs (which is about 2 minutes away from the exam centre and makes for an excellent picture when you pass!) The exam is held at the Dover Coastguard centre. When you get to the building, call in on the intercom and tell them why you’re there. When you’ve parked, someone will meet you at the door and escort you up to the room. The people in the office were lovely, offering me birthday cake because it was the examiner’s birthday!

Before I went in, a question came up about drenchers- caught me completely off guard and I made a bit of a tit of myself straight away but recovered it when I realised what he was talking about.

Went in at 13:30. After the general chat about what I’d been on and in what capacity, as well as the usual health and safety talk, we got down to it at 13:45.

1- Tell me about passage planning- and don’t mention APEM!
Started by saying I’d collect the correct information, stopped me as soon as I said ALRS
2- How would you know a paper chart was up to date
Mentioned the cumulative list of NTM, to which he said ‘have you not got a phone’. You can get them online as well…
3- What do you understand by a deep-water anchorage?
Wouldn’t drop the anchor, would pay it out. Straight onto the next question…
4- When would you correct your heeling bucket?
This one caught me out! Something to do with dip angles with the lines of magnetism. He eventually got it out of me, but I still have no idea how!
5- MET- what is a Stevenson screen used for?
Wet and dry bulb, measuring dew point to work out whether you’re likely to have fog…
6- What’s the difference between autopilot and track control systems?
Said about the inputs and that you can stay on your track without a gyro as you have position and COG feeds with track control.
7- Ok then. You’ve lost your heading so you’re in relative vectors on the ARPA, plot:

Two vessels with Risk of Collision, made sure I was in restricted visibility still and came to starboard. He puts a can day shape on the desk to show your heading, DON’T THINK THIS IS YOUR VECTOR!! All he wants is CPA, TCPA (very roughly) and that the other is same course/speed.
‘Lookout reports rapid ringing on the bell ahead of you’- rattled off the rule, stopped the vessel and he was very happy to move on
8- What are the inherent issues with ARPA?
Again, stumped me a bit with the OOW knowledge I’d forgotten to look over!! Managed to get out a bit about rolling and tracking gates and then eventually he led me onto ‘it’s only as good as your inputs’…
9- Narrow channel- what rule applies and tell me about it?
Mentioned rule 9, staying to the right and the bit about impeding. ‘What about overtaking’ – rule 13 still applies
10- CARGO- what about heavy lifts?
Really all he wanted to know about not hitting the dock and using 2x 12t cranes to lift a 24t container- you can do it with a yo-yo lift apparently. I also mentioned lateral drag and taking your time to lift
11- Steel coils
Used a cup in the room to show I’d store it axis fore and aft- why? Mentioned I didn’t want the bottoms to bend and he moved off it
12- Grain
‘You know the grain rules and grain stability, don’t you’- yes I replied! ‘Then we won’t talk about that! What do you know about testing for moisture content?’ Take a sample, bang it 25 times and if any water comes don’t load and get P&I to test. ‘What about angles of repose?’ Forgot to mention it’s the angle at which the cargo will shift, but he got it out of me.
13- You need to fumigate a hold, what are you going to do?
Hadn’t read much on this but knew it was MGN284- said that and he said ‘you know that, we’ll move on’- TOUCH!!
14- EMERGENCY RESPONSE- tell me how often you’d do these drills:
– Dangerous space (2 months)
– Boats in the water (3 months)
– Davit liferafts (3 months)
– MES (bit of confusion here, check that one out…)
15- As master, you’re crossing the Atlantic and see ice, what will you do?
Mentioned SOLAS V regulation 31, report ashore and to all vessels in the vicinity, then he asked what else I would report and what a derelict was
16- As C/M, you hear the general alarm go off in the night and you see a ship in your side- actions
Took a muster, assessed the damage and told everyone else to do damage control while I did damage stability on the bridge
‘So, what else might you do?’ Wanted sound around the whole vessel
‘Where would you find what is required in a damage control kit?’ – SMS, apparently nowhere else (no MGNs or in any codes)
17- Where would you find distress signals?
Annex 4 of the COLREGs- apparently no one else has ever answered that straight away, but luckily I knew it was coming!!
18- What would you do with someone with appendicitis?
Said about the Ship captain’s medical guide and that it would probably say to get radio medical advice. Couldn’t remember which volume of ALRS that would be in, but he didn’t care too much.
19- Tell me about passenger ship certificates
Listed everything, he subsequently asked about surveys for load line and when they’re due (ITS THE EXPIRY DATE!!), whether you’d sail with what’s on your safe manning document as compliment (obviously not if you can help it) and then about offloading garbage when they want an extortionate amount of money to offload it (where would you log a grievance and where does it say about this)
20- MAINTENANCE- where would you find info on paint?
MSDS sheet for the paint. ‘But what does paint protect?’ Ship from rust and makes it more efficient ‘what in the paint does this’ the composition. ‘What is that?’ Wanted flakes, accelerator and carrier, but I had no clue (luckily, he said it wasn’t that important!)
21- BUOYAGE
Gave me an East cardinal and a South cardinal, stumbled a bit through the seconds for the lights on the east cardinal and didn’t mess it up for the south! He said what would be your action if you were heading 270 (didn’t like it when I moved the ship to 270!) said it didn’t matter which side I went because I was in the safe water, so left it to port. ’What would you expect to see next?’ North cardinal, of course!!
Then gave me an IALA B starboard hand, asked why the Americans did it the wrong way. Its something to do with the directions of buoyage…
22- ROR- for this, you’ve already got Risk of Collision, the captain had been called and hasn’t come up.
PDV on your port side- alter to starboard to parallel them, can’t go to port
PDV on your stbd side- alter course to starboard, don’t cross ahead- ‘what if you were 15 miles away and going 3 degrees to port meant you passed 3 miles ahead, would you do it?’ Said no because I don’t want to pass ahead, he smiled, said he would’ve been fine if I said yes, told him I’d do it in real life but not in an exam!
PDV Head on
PDV almost head on (half point on the port bow), strong wind and on a ship with a big windage- He said no risk of collision existed at that point. The wind was from a direction that would’ve blown me over onto them so said I would expect to set to port and as such would maintain a COG to keep the current CPA. All he wanted was keep an eye on the weather and monitor
In a TSS, small boat crossing from port with swimmers behind it- I said I’d monitor, then he said ‘I’d get out the way’
Fishing vessel, no day shape, on port side- said I’d stand on, he put the day shape up, said rule 18 now applied and I’d go to port providing there were no extending nets
23- LIGHTS-
Vessel NUC from astern or aground less than 50m- fog signal for both and what you would do to overtake the NUC (risk assessment, which side is best)
Vessel RAM, underwater operations and more than 50m, making way- I said I’d pass down the side with 2 greens. He’s using Wardy’s box of tricks which is pre-set up prior to going in so have a look and start thinking before he asks!!
22- FINAL QUESTION-
You’re in a TSS and you’re being overtaken on your starboard quarter, bend to starboard coming up. Actions.
WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT MENTION STAND ON VESSELS!!! He wants you to say that it’s the other vessel’s responsibility to overtake you and keep clear, so they need to deal with it.

With that, it was a case of how you thought it went and then said I’d PASSED!! Said he was happy with my cargo knowledge, even though I’d bumbled it a bit. Then asked me what he thought of his exam!!

Roe is a very nice examiner; he tries to help you out and loves it if you mention references- it got me away with fumigation so definitely have a list of some related to cargo and Nav. It’s very practical, he’s wants to know where stuff comes from and what you do, only a bit of why (other than the paint stuff). He will push you and ask you masters bits but if it stumps you, he will tell you he’s just digging and bring it back. Also, he will literally run his finger through MGN 69 and work out from your ship type what he doesn’t need to cover and what he needs to check that you know.

I would definitely recommend Dover, from the previous reports they’re nice exams and Roe is very good at taking them. Don’t be afraid to venture away from Liverpool, especially for cruise ship guys! Just make sure you’re good on general cargo and bulk and you’ll breeze the rest.

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