Colreg.net

Date: 19th January 2011

Name: Ross McCulloch Millar

Examiner: Captain Vinod Ranganathan

Duration: 1 Hour

Experience: Class 1 Passenger Ships - P & O Cruises

Result: Pass

The examiner greeted me and I was taken in promptly on time. He looked at my documents and certificates, looked down my discharge book and commented that I have only ever been on passenger vessels. We chatted for a while and I started to relax, just before the exam started he stated quite clearly that unless I was told otherwise I should answer all questions as a Chief Mate.

Once we started the first question was regarding the roles and responsibilities of the Safety Officer. This branched out in Safety Committee, risk assessment and the Code of Safe Working Practice.

He then said you have a Polish Officer joining the ship. How would you go about signing him onboard the vessel?

He then said that the ship was receiving a cadet onboard. How would you induct him onboard the ship as Chief Officer?

He then moved onto the duties and responsibilities of the Chief Officer onboard, this then branched out into planned maintenance and responsibilities regarding fresh water. He wanted to know about dry dock maintenance regarding fresh water tanks.

This lead onto Dry Dock stability, he asked me what as Chief Officer would be my main concern when thinking about dry-dock. I mentioned GM and then stern trim; he then said what you would consider to be a safe and acceptable stern trim. I was slightly thrown by this but ended up saying the smaller the stern trim, the smaller the critical period was.

Then said that I was Master onboard a vessel less than 3000GT, he asked me what I would be looked at when the Chief Officer presented me with a stability report prior to departure. I gave him all of the IMO related Stability Criteria. He then went onto curves of stability and I also mentioned assumptions that are made on passenger ships regarding passenger’s weight and distribution onboard, he seemed quite happy about this and then moved on. We spent about 30 minutes alone talking about stability and wanted a great deal of depth on everything he asked.

He then said to me that I was back in dry-dock and that the ship had suffered a small dent in the forepeak and that the plating was going to be replaced. He then asked me where I would look to find out about the plating, I mentioned the Shell Expansion Plan and then started to go into it. He then asked me how I would be satisfied that the welds on the plating were sufficient. This question really threw me and it took me a while before I mentioned pressure testing and ultrasonic means of testing welds durability

The next questions he put to me was you hear the crew alert going off; you were in the mess room eating. What is your initial action? I told him I would go to the bridge and expect a full report from the Officer on Watch and the initial actions that they have taken. This question then leads onto a fire in the main galley. He wanted to know what I would be doing and my responsibilities during an emergency.

This then lead onto buoyage and Rules of the Road. He gave me a few situations but nothing taxing, in fact I was surprised at how easy this part was. Same with the buoyage, IALA B outbound, but again nothing taxing.

The very last thing he gave me was a radar plotting sheet with 2 vessels plotted. He gave me CPA, TCPA, true course etc and said I had a few minutes to study the sheet, then he wanted to know what I would have done. He also wanted me to explain the WOA triangle.

Once I had completed this he said congratulations you’ve passed. A huge sigh of relief and he stamped my NOE. We chatted for a little longer and he wished me good luck and showed me out.

Good Luck.