STCW Basic Safety Training common mistakes
STCW Basic Safety Training · Understand the traps and how to avoid them.
States that every Basic Safety Training certificate (fire fighting, first aid, PSSR, survival techniques) must be renewed or revalidated every five years.
The 2010 Manila amendments single out personal survival techniques for five-yearly evidence of maintained competence, while the other three basic courses carry no such refresher requirement. Candidates learn one 'five-year rule' and over-apply it to everything.
What to do instead
Learn the three clocks separately: certificate of competency revalidated at 5 years; only PST competence re-demonstrated every 5 years; medical certificate valid for a maximum of 2 years (1 year if under 18).
Gives 'seven short blasts followed by one long blast' as the ship's fire alarm, or gives the general emergency alarm as the abandon-ship signal.
All three alarms are taught in the same session and are rehearsed in the same drill; candidates memorise the sound pattern without attaching it to the action it triggers.
What to do instead
Memorise signal-to-action pairs, not sounds alone: continuous ringing of bells = fire; seven short plus one long blast = general emergency, proceed to muster station; a verbal order from the master = abandon ship.
Selects water as the first extinguishing medium for a live electrical switchboard, a spill of fuel oil, or a galley deep-fat fryer.
Candidates fix on 'water is the universal extinguishant' and never classify the fuel; the fire triangle is recited correctly but not applied to medium selection.
What to do instead
Classify first, then choose: water for class A solids only; CO2 or dry powder for live electrical; foam, CO2 or dry powder for flammable liquids; wet chemical for cooking oil. Always aim at the base of the fire.
Puts the lifejacket on but leaves the crotch strap undone, then describes entering the water feet-first with both arms raised.
Donning is practised once in a classroom with no water entry, so the crotch strap looks cosmetic and the water-entry posture is never tested.
What to do instead
Don within 60 seconds unaided, crotch strap secured; jump with legs crossed, one hand pinching the nose, the other arm clamped across the jacket; then adopt HELP alone or huddle with others.
Treats a single 'safe for entry' gas reading taken at the hatch as clearing the whole compartment, and enters without a standby man posted at the entrance.
The test result is remembered as a pass/fail number rather than as a snapshot of one point in a space that stratifies and is disturbed by the entrant.
What to do instead
State the full package in one breath: entry permit, test at top, middle and bottom, continuous ventilation, standby man at the entrance with rescue equipment and communications, and re-test if entry is suspended.
Checks for a pulse for a full minute before starting compressions, or gives two rescue breaths to fifteen compressions.
Old protocols and film portrayals persist in memory, and candidates practise the sequence in fragments rather than as one continuous run.
What to do instead
Drill the current chain aloud: danger, response, airway, breathing, call for help and AED, then 30 compressions to 2 breaths at 100-120 per minute, 5-6 cm deep; the recovery position only for a breathing casualty.
Describes the abandon-ship sequence as inflating and boarding the liferafts the moment the alarm sounds, with no mention of the master's order, immersion suits or a head count.
The dramatic part of the drill is remembered and the administrative and accounting steps that precede and follow it are dropped.
What to do instead
Learn it as a fixed sequence: master's order, warm clothing and immersion suit, lifejacket, muster station, head count, launch and board, clear away, second head count and report to the bridge.
Treats a DSC distress alert from another vessel as something to acknowledge and re-transmit at once, and uses MAYDAY for a situation that is merely urgent.
The three priority levels are learned as vocabulary rather than as thresholds, and the acknowledgement rules are confused with ordinary voice procedure.
What to do instead
Tie each word to a test: MAYDAY requires grave and imminent danger, PAN PAN is urgency without imminent danger, SECURITE is a safety message. Relay only when the distressed station is not acknowledged, and be able to state the false-alert cancellation procedure.
Assumes that completing basic safety training alone qualifies a candidate to serve on an oil tanker or to assist passengers on a ro-ro ferry.
Basic training is the entry gate for all seafarers, so candidates stop reading once they have passed it and never separate the general requirement from the ship-type specific ones.
What to do instead
Attach an extra requirement to each ship type: tanker familiarisation, plus advanced training for tankers; crowd management and crisis management and human behaviour for passenger ships; specific safety training for offshore units, high-speed craft and ships using gases or other low-flashpoint fuels.
Quotes the minimum rest as 'eight hours in twenty-four' and accepts a watch handover while a navigational situation is still unresolved.
The rest-hour figures are absorbed from older or land-based working-time rules, and handover is treated as a courtesy rather than as a transfer of responsibility.
What to do instead
Quote the figures exactly: at least 10 hours of rest in any 24-hour period and 77 hours in any 7-day period, in no more than two periods of which one is at least 6 hours. Do not hand over or take over if in doubt: resolve the situation or call the master, then record it in the log.