Safety and Environmental Protection
Environmental questions reward precise numbers. You should be able to quote MARPOL discharge limits by Annex, name the special areas that affect Egyptian voyages, explain the sulphur limits, and show how a ship's carbon intensity is calculated. Safety questions cover enclosed space entry, permits to work, and life-saving and fire-fighting appliance maintenance.
MARPOL essentials
- Annex I - machinery space bilges through 15 ppm equipment, ship en route, not in a special area; the Mediterranean and Red Sea are both Annex I special areas; Oil Record Book Parts I and II; SOPEP on board.
- Annex II - noxious liquid substances, prewash and P&A Manual.
- Annex IV - sewage, comminuted and disinfected at more than 3 nm, untreated at more than 12 nm.
- Annex V - garbage; food waste comminuted at 3 nm or more, otherwise 12 nm or more; plastics never.
- Annex VI - 0.50% sulphur globally since 1 January 2020, 0.10% in ECAs; the Mediterranean Sea SOx ECA applies a 0.10% limit from 1 May 2025; NOx Tier III in designated areas; EEXI and CII.
Safety management
Enclosed space entry requires a permit, atmosphere testing, a standby man, communications and rescue equipment at the entrance; an entry and rescue drill is held every two months. Life-saving and fire-fighting appliances are maintained under a planned maintenance system with records.
Worked example - attained CII
Annual fuel 4,000 t VLSFO, CF 3.151, deadweight 50,000 t, distance 90,000 nm. CO2 = 4,000 x 3.151 = 12,604 t. Attained CII = 12,604 x 10^6 / (50,000 x 90,000) = 2.80 g CO2 per dwt-mile. This is compared with the required CII for that ship type and size to give a rating from A to E; a D for three years or an E requires a corrective action plan.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating the Mediterranean as an ordinary area for Annex I purposes.
- Confusing the 3 nm and 12 nm garbage distances.
- Omitting to record a transfer in the Oil Record Book because "no oil went overboard".
- Assuming an ECA sulphur limit applies only to fuel used in the main engine.
Emergency Response
Emergency questions are usually scenario-driven and reward a structured first action followed by a stated rationale. The examiner wants the muster list, the immediate action, the report and the follow-up, in that order - plus the drill intervals, which are frequently asked and frequently wrong.
Organisation
A muster list assigns every person a station and duty; emergency squads cover fire, damage control, first aid and the bridge. The officer of the watch's immediate action in any emergency is to inform the master, raise the alarm, fix the position and decide whether the vessel is in a position of danger.
Drill and training intervals (SOLAS III/19)
- Abandon ship and fire drills: monthly, and within 24 hours of leaving port if more than 25% of the crew has changed.
- Emergency steering drill: every three months, and within 12 hours before departure.
- Enclosed space entry and rescue drill: every two months.
- Rescue boat drill: monthly, with launching at least every three months.
Worked example - man overboard
Initial action: helm hard over toward the side of the casualty to swing the stern clear, release the lifebuoy with light and smoke, sound three long blasts, press the MOB key on the GPS/ECDIS to mark the datum, post a lookout, inform the master and start the recovery party. Then, in clear visibility, a Williamson turn: hard to starboard until about 60° off the original course, then hard to port until about 20° short of the reciprocal, and steady on the reciprocal course - this brings the ship back along her own track, which is valuable at night or in reduced visibility. In good conditions and with good manoeuvrability, the Anderson turn returns faster but leaves the track.
Specific emergencies
Fire: sound the alarm, close down the space, boundary cooling, fixed CO2 only after confirming everyone is out. Flooding: as damage control. Grounding: check soundings and pollution before any attempt to refloat. Abandon ship only on the master's explicit order.
Traps that cost marks
- Ordering abandon ship on your own initiative as OOW.
- Turning the wrong way for MOB and putting the propeller into the person.
- Quoting drill intervals incorrectly - the emergency steering and enclosed space drills are the usual casualties.
- Forgetting to record drills and to note deficiencies for the next port.
Search and Rescue
SAR questions test the IAMSAR framework and simple arithmetic: choosing a search pattern from the quality of the datum, working out track spacing from sweep width, and computing how far a datum has drifted. Egyptian waters give good material - a vessel reported overdue between Suez and the Sinai coast, or an EPIRB alert in the Mediterranean approaches.
Framework (IAMSAR)
Volume I covers organisation, Volume II coordination, Volume III mobile facilities. Roles: the SAR Mission Coordinator sets the search area and plan; the On-Scene Coordinator controls units actually searching; the Aircraft Coordinator handles aviation. Distress phases move from uncertainty to alert to distress. The GMDSS provides the alerting path; IAMSAR provides the response.
Patterns
- Expanding square - datum with poor or unknown position accuracy.
- Sector - datum with good position accuracy and a short time delay; a fixed wing or helicopter searches sectors around the datum.
- Parallel track (creeping line parallel) - large area, good position accuracy, several units.
- Creeping line - long rectangle, good accuracy; also used for a route search with track line search when the position is unknown along a known track.
Track spacing S = W x (1 − overlap), where W is sweep width. Correct for wind, sea, light and target size when estimating W.
Worked example - parallel track search
Sweep width 4.0 nm, required 25% overlap: S = 4.0 x 0.75 = 3.0 nm. Every track is run along the 24 nm length of the box; the box is 15 nm wide, so tracks needed = 15 / 3 = 5 tracks. Total track length = 5 x 24 + 4 turns, each a semicircle of radius S/2 = 1.5 nm, giving 4 x pi x 1.5 = 18.85 nm. Total = 138.85 nm; at 12 kn the search takes about 11.6 hours.
Datum drift
Add leeway (commonly 2%–3% of wind speed for a person in the water, more for a liferaft) to the surface current, multiply by the time since the incident, and move the datum downwind/downcurrent.
Traps that cost marks
- Choosing the expanding square when the datum is precise and time is short.
- Computing track spacing from sweep width without the overlap factor.
- Ignoring leeway and current when moving the datum.
- Confusing the SMC's role with the OSC's, or letting the OSC transmit on the distress frequency without control.