Emergency situations and mustering procedures
What this domain tests
This domain tests whether you can read shipboard alarms correctly and act on the muster list without being told. The examiner wants the difference between a general emergency, a fire alarm and the master's order to abandon ship, plus the duties attached to your name.
Core rules
- The general emergency alarm is seven or more short blasts followed by one long blast on the ship's whistle and internal alarm bells. It means muster, not abandon ship.
- Abandon ship is a separate verbal order from the master, or the senior surviving officer. Nobody else can order it, and the general alarm alone never means 'over the side'.
- The muster list gives each person a station, specific duties and a named substitute for every key duty. It is displayed in the accommodation, bridge, engine room and muster stations.
- Typical duties include closing watertight and fire doors, stopping ventilation and fuel, preparing boats and rafts, mustering passengers, answering the roll call and taking the EPIRB if assigned.
- On hearing the alarm: stop work, secure your machinery, use the marked escape route, don a lifejacket when ordered, muster, report to the person in charge and stay there.
Worked example
You are a deck hand. Seven short blasts and one long blast sound, then the PA says 'fire in the galley'. Do you head for the boats? No. The signal is the general emergency alarm and the message tells you the emergency. Go to your fire muster station, report to the officer in charge and carry out the firefighting duty listed against your name. You move to your boat station only if the master orders abandon ship.
Traps
- Going to the lifeboat station on the general alarm instead of mustering.
- Not knowing your substitute, secondary station or escape route.
- Returning to the cabin for personal belongings.
- Shutting a door that is part of the escape route, or leaving a watertight door open when your duty is to close it.
- Assuming someone else has answered the roll call.