NIMASA STCW MSA common mistakes
NIMASA STCW MSA · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
When asked to state a watchkeeping or lookout requirement, the candidate answers from memory of a general principle ("keep a proper lookout") without citing the specific STCW regulation and the concrete hours/conditions it imposes, e.g. the rest-period figures in STCW Section A-VIII/1.
Candidates revise from summary notes and company circulars that compress the Convention into slogans, so they never learn that STCW answers are graded against precise numeric and structural criteria (regulations plus Part A mandatory standards plus Part B guidance).
What to do instead
For each watchkeeping topic build a one-page card with three columns: regulation number, the exact numeric limit or duty, and one worked scenario. Practise stating answers in the form "Under STCW Regulation VIII/1 and Section A-VIII/1, minimum rest is 10 hours in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any 7-day period". Drill until the numbers and the citation come out together.
The candidate describes emergency drills and training requirements vaguely ("regular drills are held") instead of naming the required drill types, intervals and the records kept, and cannot distinguish abandon-ship, fire, enclosure-space entry and rescue-boat drill requirements.
Drill requirements are scattered across STCW Chapter VI, SOLAS and the LSA Code, and candidates study them as a single undifferentiated block, so the intervals and the specific vessel-type variations blur together.
What to do instead
Make a drill matrix: rows for each drill type (abandon ship, fire, collision, grounding, oil spill, enclosed space entry and rescue, rescue boat), columns for interval, who must participate, and where it is recorded. Write out each entry from the source text, then test yourself by covering the interval column. Include the rule that every crew member must participate in at least one abandon-ship and one fire drill every month.
On engine-room watchkeeping questions the candidate answers as if the watch is a solo task, omitting the handover procedure, the unmanned machinery space (UMS) alarm and monitoring arrangements, and the chief engineer's standing instructions.
Many candidates have cadet experience on one vessel type and generalise it; they have not internalised STCW Chapter III and the ISM-based watch handover checklist, so they describe what they did rather than what the Convention and the safety management system require.
What to do instead
Learn the handover as a fixed sequence: machinery status, ongoing work and permits, abnormal readings and trends, outstanding alarms, fuel and water levels, and verbal confirmation accepted by the relieving engineer. Then learn the UMS requirements as a separate list (alarm transfer to the duty engineer, dead-man alarm, monitoring of critical parameters). Rehearse both aloud in under two minutes each.
The candidate treats conventions as separate silos and cannot say which instrument governs a given situation, for example answering a ballast water question with MARPOL Annex I content or confusing SOLAS chapter numbers when asked where life-saving appliance requirements sit.
Revision is often organised by course subject rather than by instrument, and the candidate never builds a map of which convention, chapter and annex covers which obligation, so retrieval fails under exam pressure.
What to do instead
Draw a one-page convention map: IMO instruments (SOLAS, MARPOL, STCW, COLREG, LL, MLC, BWM, AFS, ISPS) with the chapter or annex responsible for each major obligation. Then do identification drills: read twenty short scenario stems and write only the instrument and chapter, not the full answer. This trains retrieval of the correct source before content.
Stability questions are answered with a formula recited from memory but applied to the wrong quantity, for example using KG where GM is required, or giving a free-surface correction without explaining that it reduces effective GM.
Candidates memorise formulae without the diagram or physical meaning behind them, and exam questions are usually phrased as short scenarios rather than "state the formula", so the candidate cannot decide which quantity is being asked for.
What to do instead
For each stability quantity (KG, KM, GM, GZ, FSC, angle of loll) draw the associated sketch and write a one-sentence physical meaning next to the formula. Practise the standard calculation chain: displacement from draught, KG from moments, KM from hydrostatics, then GM. Always state units and whether the result is positive or negative and what that means for the vessel.
The candidate lists MARPOL discharge criteria without the qualifying conditions, for example giving the oil content limit for machinery space bilge water but omitting that the ship must be underway, the oily water separator and filtering equipment must be in operation, and the discharge must not be from a tanker cargo area.
Annex I has several distinct regimes (machinery space bilge, cargo area of tankers, special areas) and candidates collapse them into one number, because they learn the headline figure from a summary table rather than from the annex text.
What to do instead
Build a discharge-criteria table with one row per regime and columns for oil content limit, ship status, equipment required, special-area variation and record-book entry. Learn each row as a complete sentence. Then practise five short scenarios where you must decide whether the discharge is lawful and cite the annex, regulation and the record book involved.
ISPS questions are answered by describing general security awareness rather than the specific roles and documents: the Ship Security Officer, the Ship Security Plan and its approval and amendments, the Ship Security Assessment, the Declaration of Security, and the three security levels with their concrete measures.
Security is often taught as a soft-skills module, so candidates retain attitudes rather than the Code's defined instruments, and they confuse the port facility security officer's duties with the ship security officer's.
What to do instead
Make a two-column role table: SSO duties versus PFSO duties, and CSO oversight. Then write, from the Code, what changes at each of security levels 1, 2 and 3 for access control, monitoring and restricted areas. Learn the Declaration of Security as a document with defined triggers (e.g. higher security level, ship/port interface) rather than a general agreement.
GMDSS answers mix up the distress, urgency and safety priority levels and their associated signals, and the candidate cannot state which equipment covers which sea area (A1 to A4) or which certificate function applies.
The GMDSS is a system of linked parts (sea areas, equipment carriage, certificates, frequencies, alerting methods) and candidates learn the parts in isolation, so a question about sea area A3 produces an answer about A1 equipment.
What to do instead
Draw the sea-area map first: A1 VHF coverage, A2 MF, A3 Inmarsat or HF within coverage, A4 outside all. On the same page list required equipment per area. Then make a priority table for distress (MAYDAY, DSC alert on VHF channel 70 or MF/HF, 2182 kHz radiotelephony), urgency (PAN PAN) and safety (SECURITE), and rehearse a short distress call aloud including position, nature of distress and assistance required.
First aid and survival answers are given as a list of items in a survival craft without the physiological reasoning, for example naming the actions for hypothermia or drowning but in the wrong order, or omitting the immediate priorities of rescue, airway and bleeding control.
Candidates revise first aid by reading checklists rather than rehearsing sequences, and the exam rewards ordered, reasoned action; without practice the order collapses under pressure.
What to do instead
Write each emergency as a numbered sequence: for hypothermia (handle gently, remove from cold, insulate, no rapid rewarming, no alcohol, monitor breathing); for drowning (rescue safely, check breathing, rescue breaths and CPR as trained); for bleeding (direct pressure, elevate, monitor for shock). Rehearse each sequence aloud twice, then test yourself by writing the steps from memory and checking order against the source.
The candidate answers human-element questions with generic statements about fatigue or communication instead of naming the specific mechanisms: the effects of fatigue on watchkeeping performance, the purpose and content of the rest-hour records, the bridge resource management behaviours, and the reporting routes for near misses.
Human element topics feel like common sense, so candidates do not prepare specific vocabulary or evidence, and they cannot connect the requirement (e.g. STCW rest hours, the ISM Code's non-conformity reporting) to the observable behaviour the question asks about.
What to do instead
For each human-element topic write one concrete example and one regulatory hook: fatigue (10 hours rest in 24, 77 in 7, records retained on board), BRM (challenge and response, closed-loop communication, shared mental model), safety culture (near-miss reporting, just culture, non-punitive reporting). Practise turning each into a two-sentence scenario answer that names the behaviour and the rule.