BD Deck Officer Class 2 (Chief Mate) common mistakes
BD Deck Officer Class 2 (Chief Mate) · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
Builds the passage plan as a list of waypoints typed straight into the ECDIS and never performs the appraisal stage: no berth-to-berth no-go areas, abort points or contingency anchorages, and no independent check of the auto-generated route against the largest-scale paper chart.
Under time pressure candidates treat passage planning as waypoint entry. The auto-route function produces plausible legs that cross charted dangers, over-scale areas and safety contours that were never inspected.
What to do instead
Answer in the four stages (appraisal, planning, execution, monitoring) and state explicitly how each leg was checked for isolated dangers, the safety contour and safety depth settings, wheel-over positions and abort points. Mention the independent cross-check against the paper chart.
Presents a loading plan that verifies only the final departure condition, with no shear force and bending moment check at intermediate stages, and accepts a lashing arrangement without working through the balance-of-forces method in the CSS Code.
The final condition is the one printed in the stability booklet, so it gets copied. Hull stress typically peaks mid-loading, and securing adequacy is assumed rather than calculated.
What to do instead
Show shear force and bending moment at each stage against the permissible curve, identify the worst case, and either demonstrate the securing calculation or cite the approved cargo securing manual with the assumed accelerations and the CSS Code.
Answers every stability question with GM alone, quoting a positive GM as proof of stability, and cannot compute or interpret the area under the GZ curve, the angle of vanishing stability, or the free-surface correction to KG.
GM is the single number candidates memorise from the booklet, so the intact stability criteria are learned as a recited list with no practice in applying them to a curve.
What to do instead
Work the IS Code 2008 Part A 2.2 criteria numerically (area to 30 degrees, area to 40 degrees, GZ maximum and its angle, initial GM), and state the free-surface correction as free surface moment divided by displacement, added to KG.
Answers hours-of-rest, risk-assessment and enclosed-space-entry questions with generalities such as the master ensuring adequate rest or a risk assessment being carried out, without citing the instrument, the required record or the specific control measures.
These are treated as soft management topics, revised last, and answered from general awareness rather than from STCW and MLC requirements and the ship's safety management system.
What to do instead
Learn the specific requirements: minimum rest hours and permitted exceptions, the permit-to-work and atmosphere-testing sequence before entry, and the documented risk assessment. Answer with the record kept, the responsible person and the control measures.
Answers convention questions from company or flag-State practice, and mixes figures and references, for example the Hague-Visby package limitation, the Hamburg limits, CLC and Fund limits, and SOLAS chapter numbering.
Candidates answer from working habit and shipboard procedure rather than the convention text, and the numeric limits are held as a blurred set rather than a table.
What to do instead
Anchor every answer to the instrument and article, keep a one-page table of the key limits and chapter headings, and always state the convention requirement before describing any company procedure that implements it.
Jumps straight into the physical response, boundary cooling or starting pumps, without first mustering, accounting for all persons, isolating ventilation, and confirming the emergency organisation and internal communications.
The dramatic part of the scenario is the firefighting or flooding action, so the command-and-control sequence that the examiner is actually testing gets skipped.
What to do instead
Answer as a timeline: alarm and muster, head count against the muster list, bridge and engine room liaison, decision on the fixed system, boundary cooling, ventilation and fuel isolation, then a damage-control assessment of added weight, free surface and residual GM.
Selects the wrong alerting device for the scenario, confuses the roles of VHF and HF DSC, Inmarsat and the satellite EPIRB, and omits the follow-up distress communication, the false-alert cancellation procedure and the on-scene frequency.
Frequencies and device roles are memorised as a flat list with no mental model of the chain from alerting, through SAR coordination, to on-scene communication.
What to do instead
Learn the chain for each sea area A1 to A4, commit the frequency table to memory (DSC 2187.5 and 8414.5 kHz, radiotelephony channel 16, on-scene working frequencies), and rehearse the false-alert cancellation sequence for each device type.
Reads the synoptic chart as a still photograph, describing isobars and the front's plotted position but never moving the system, using the three-hour pressure tendency, or comparing the forecast position with the observed position.
The chart printed in the question is taken as the complete answer, whereas tendency, system motion and forecast-versus-actual divergence are precisely what demonstrate understanding.
What to do instead
Always state the system's direction and speed of movement and when it will affect the vessel, use the pressure tendency and its rate as the local check, and comment explicitly on the difference between the forecast and observed positions.
Identifies the applicable collision regulation correctly and then quotes its wording instead of stating the action: own ship's alteration, when it should be made, by how much, and what to do if the other vessel does not respond.
The rules are learned as text for recall, while the examination requires application to a specific bearing, range and aspect, including the give-way and stand-on interaction and last-minute action.
What to do instead
Answer in sequence: situation and applicable rule, own responsibility, action and timing, continued monitoring by radar and visual means, sound signals, and the in-extremis fallback. Practise with concrete bearings, ranges and crossing or overtaking geometries.
Answers manoeuvring questions with the trial turning circle and stopping distance from the manoeuvring booklet, ignoring squat, shallow-water and bank effects, the shift of pivot point once the ship is stopped or making sternway, and the effect of tugs.
Booklet figures are the easy recall answer, while the modifying factors are covered only in passing during revision, and bridge resource management behaviours are rarely mentioned at all.
What to do instead
State the loading condition and water depth explicitly, quantify squat and under-keel clearance, name the interaction effects, give the pivot point for each propulsion state, and describe tug use together with the bridge resource management behaviours: briefing, challenge and response, and closed-loop communication.