Orals Report – OOW unlimited

April 2022
1h20m
Ahsan Khan

PASS

He signed on exactly on time meaning I had been waiting on Teams for 20 mins
and was feeling nervous. He was very polite and courteous, we went through
general housekeeping, swept the room and he laid down the rules which put me
at ease, my nerves dissipated and it all started flowing. While I definitely can’t
remember everything, the general exam went as follows:

 Joining a ship, what do you expect – asked about loadline convention

 APEM from UK to USA – I was stopped at Execution
 Setting up the bridge equipment for departure etc.
 ECDIS
 Asked about areas that would only be RNC on the ECDIS, can we sail if
only RNC? I was hesitant but said I would confirm with the master and
order paper charts.
I’ve chatted to my old safety officer since and you do need paper charts if
you only have RNC on ECDIS - which 100% makes sense but I couldn’t
remember the legislation to back up my answer.
 Duties as a 3/0, SMS etc.
 Position fixing methods
 Sextant correctable errors
 Walking past the galley; smoke coming from under the door – actions
 What classes of fire would you expect to find in there and fire suppression
methods
 MOB SB/S
 Rescue boat – what are the checks for this; weekly, monthly and what is in
the inventory
 Scenario moved on to being on a cargo ship – (my actual nightmare topic
as I’ve almost exclusively been on passenger ships) we went through
some IMDG, asked what you would find in the publication, scenario of a
fire in a container – actions, where would I find info on this etc.
 Bulk: talk about publications – ISMBC, BLU
 Stability (THIS WAS BROAD); tell me what you know about bulk carrier
stability – I rattled off anything I could think of that could be of relevance
and somehow ended up talking about Timber before he moved it on.
 Asked about GM’s
 Draw a rough GZ curve for a normal container ship and explain the
diagram and what parts of the curve mean etc.

We’d been chatting for around 50 mins to 1hr, the cargo section had me
sweating buckets.
BUOYS: what are they and actions
 IALA A preferred channel mark
 North cardinal mark seen on 90degree heading
 West cardinal on 270 degree heading
 Isolated danger mark
 Special Mark with lateral significance

RoR:
 Overtaking in narrow channel – sounds etc
 TSS – PDV on port side
 Vessel looked like it was overtaking but turned out it was not quite 22.5
degrees abaft my beam which meant I was the giveway vessel
 Aground day shapes

Lights:
 PDV towing and RAM
 Fishing vessel engaged in trawling – seen from starboard
 Fishing vessel seen from astern, making way, with gear out
 CBD – I cant remember the situation

I think there were a few more Lights and RoR but this part went by in a blur.

Radar plots:
 Asked me to draw the plot out just roughly on blank paper and label etc
for a vessel abaft the beam on the starboard quarter – goto port
 2 vessels ahead of my beam; 1 to port with 0CPA and 1 almost on my
beam to starboard but passing clear, relative vectors and true trails –
moving to starboard was the right answer and he told me I had passed.

I think he was very fair, I displayed thorough knowledge and had the legislation
to hand to back up almost every answer. I was a little vague when it came to
some aspects of cargo but smashed the rest.

Thank you to my revision group for all the support and keeping me
motivated over these past few months and Paul @ Whitehorse with his
army of tutors (specifically Kieran) who all helped me practice and
formulate answers, refine legislation into all topics and target specific
study areas, it was well worth it.