Personal experiences with your training record books?

[RNR]

I am still waiting for a call from my company about when I am flying out to meet the ship (been waiting since mid July) so I decided to flick through my record book yet again. It looks like there is a whole lot to do and get signed off and was just wondering about other cadets experiences with this and the reports.

Were the officers happy to help and sign off your tasks when complete? Did you make any major errors when filling out the book? (It can get confusing at times). Or just generally any funny stories relating to the good old TRBs

[CharlieDelta]

- Write all the ships particulars out on a photocopy before you put them in the book.
- Pencil things in as they're done and bring them to someone for signing ASAP. Be ready to back it up by telling them what you did and by answering questions.
- Write reports on everything. They don't need to be pages long, just a what, where, when, why and how jobbie. Include references where possible.
- Keep a daily notebook, you'll forget things really quickly otherwise.
- Don't get hung up on signatures, you have plenty of timev and you'll find you get loads on your last trip. You will get very few proficient signatures.
- When you've got something signed off as proficient, don't complain about having to do it again.
- Some officers are signature-happy, others are a bit more strict. Do yourself a favour and don't go to the signature-happy guy - you're just cheating yourself.
- Depending on your ship, you may get very little watchkeeping time on your first trip. If you do, start your navigation workbook straight away. Sort out some pro-formas for gyro errors, met obs and so on and keep them in a folder. Keep a rough note of everything you do on watch and write it up neatly in a hardcover book (or type it). Your first few weeks you'll be writing a hell of a lot, but as time goes on you'll write less but in more detail.
- Get your rules started the minute you get on. The TRB suggests starting with Lights and Shapes which don't neccesarily need to be word-for-word, but you'd probably do well to get Rule 3 out of the way and word-for-word first. Aim for either one long or two short rules a week.

All I can think of for now

[Brimbo]

Keep a daily log of what you do, including annotated photos, pressures,temperatures, or co-ords, navigational details etc. I took these at sea and when i returned SSTG told me they are a massive asset in your oral exams to give to your examiner as evidence of your knowledge

[RNR]

But arn't the reports you have to write used as additional evidence of knowledge? I was going to put all the details of what I did, annotated photos and additional readings in there. Unless you mean by daily log just a small book used to write quick words or one line notes in for later reference when writing reports?

[Brimbo]

If you go to STC then you should get a seperate booklet with the reports you need to do, with all the details inside. But not a few words or so, I kept a full log of my daily activities, even if i was just mopping the floors and cleaning assets all day. Ask your company ( or preferably agency if possible ) about it.

[RNR]

Its changed now, they don't give you any advice or booklets on what reports to write now. All STC and Clyde said to us was write reports on most things you do that are covered in the training record book! Thats why I thought keeping a daily log on top of this seems a little excessive. To be honest the old system sounded better where they told you what reports to write, when we left the initial 'going to sea' talk most cadets were confused about what sort of reports to write and how to write them (we were only given 1 example on a powerpoint).

[ETwhat?]

I would agree with RNR we had less than an hour from the college where we got the TRB and were introduced to the work based learning module of the FD which is two reports for the college while there is also the work book (which evidences the TRB). There also seems to be some confusing advice which i tihnk comes from the fact that this version is new and people are still used to seeing it in the old format.

I removed section from the TRB, to make it a more tidy document so that it only has one ship details at a time and the random page for us to transfer the dates to which just duplicates the task sheets was removed totaly as it isnt needed for the officers who are trying to deal with it.

[Brimbo]

Its changed now, they don't give you any advice or booklets on what reports to write now. All STC and Clyde said to us was write reports on most things you do that are covered in the training record book! Thats why I thought keeping a daily log on top of this seems a little excessive. To be honest the old system sounded better where they told you what reports to write, when we left the initial 'going to sea' talk most cadets were confused about what sort of reports to write and how to write them (we were only given 1 example on a powerpoint).

If your an engineer PM me and i'll be able to give you details and help on the reports if thats the case, if not, I'm not sure, as I know the navigators TRB is different from the engineers in few ways.

[RNR]

I'm not mate, Im deck. Thanks for the offer though, maybe some other deck cadets can enlighten me on getting started with the reports?

[size4riggerboots]

CD's advice is generally sound, although speaking as someone on the last trip of their cadetship, I would say if you can get it signed off DO SO!! As he says some officers are signature happy, some are less so, I seem to have sailed with the latter and am ****ting my britches as I have 4 weeks left and quite a lot of signatures to get. Saying that the filipino 2/O I'm working with now has said he'll sign off anything I want! I'm not taking him up on that though, as I want to be able to prove I've done things, (I've been mostly on Cruise ships, with a couple of short trips on a buoy tender in my first phase and a short trip on a ro-pax this phase, so getting the cargo stuff covered has proved problematic as on the last cruise ship I was on they said "Ohhhh you'll do that on your next trip" Assuming that I'd get a cargo ship... Nuh uh. I went to the C/O on my second day with a typed up list of all the things I need to do and we discussed how we could cover some of the cargo aspects etc. I guess what I'm saying boils down to; don't assume you'll get to do it later, if you can get it signed off then do so and if you're not happy in yourself that you know it well enough then go do it again, you'll probably find yourself doing it anyway as they reckon you know what you're doing and will get given some responsibility! Get on the sextant asap, get the rules and actions of the OOW in emergency memorised asap, and be proactive, your training is your responsibility, don;t expect the officers on board to hold your hand and direct your training, take control and go to them weekly with what you want to do.

Regarding reports, I write a daily log/diary, partly for bloggy type things, but it's also incredibly useful when you look back and think "What have I done in the last 3 days?!" It's good for helping with report writing as you say things how you saw them and then when you come to the report you go and look up/ask whether that was as per procedure (and then re-write said report to reflect that, otherwise you may come up against people who say "I'm not signing that, it makes us look ****") Look at the tasks in your TRB and work out what you can lump into one report, (The reports should be what make up your operations work book, so you're writing "I did this that and the other, these safety measures were taken, as per the risk assessment and permit to work, a copy of which is attached, these regs apply, these company policies and procedures apply etc etc" It's up to you, some cadets I've met have only written what they've been set by officers on board or the WBL set by the college, but I don know if you don't produce a nav and ops workbook ( I do a hand written nav workbook and a typed up ops workbook of "reports"), you'll find life MUCH harder in the end.

[minchmermaid]

If you are struggling with reports or wondering what to write a report on then why not get your training officer to set you reports to do if they aren't doing that already? Also if you can get a signature on something, then get it straight away! Put a wee mark against the tasks that you think you can get signed off and every few days go to your TO and go through them all. Don't leave a whole pile until the day before he pays off or you off. Nobody will be impressed by that.

[dawg]

You might decide that it's a good idea to scan all the pages of the TRB and keep them saved in more than one location should you bugger it up.
Alas, even doing that might not stop you making a right mess of the Ship's Particulars sheet... mess as in, being quite messy... but nevertheless, more or less all there.

Every officer I've met has reported that at the oral exam only a cursory glance is paid to the TRB, what really matters is what's in your head when in front of the examiner and how you can problem solve in a made-up scenario (so I'm told).

From an engineers POV, collecting info from actual manuals and similar documents, from experiences/observation, and from "interviewing" officers when they're spinning their chairs in the ECR can't hurt... especially the 4/E stuff... understanding the lines, and how the main bits of machinery work (how to start them, what the alarms mean, what things can go wrong, and what you can do about them).

There are lots of bits of info online for things, if the PM is working (and my PM box isn't still clogged full), I might be able to tell people what (little) I know.

It's a grey area as to how much of the TRB you are supposed to have got through by whatever stage, or what other stuff you are supposed to do, and I imagine it works differently with different companies and ship types. As I see it, the first sea phase you are there to gather as much info as you can (you can't possibly expect to understand everything, except in general terms), and the second sea phase is arguably to try and push yourself into the forefront and have a go at doing as much as you can of the 3/O or 4/E or Junior EO's job (delete as appropriate) as you can... they do say it's your best chance to eff it all up, and to learn by doing so. You need the confidence for after you qualify, to take that big step into responsibility (i.e. potential blame ).

[Polaris]

Every officer I've met has reported that at the oral exam only a cursory glance is paid to the TRB, what really matters is what's in your head when in front of the examiner and how you can problem solve in a made-up scenario (so I'm told).

Anyone else agree or think along the same sort of lines?

[Hatchorder]

Anyone else agree or think along the same sort of lines?

In my orals the examiner opened the TRB, looked at the centre pages, which had a completion chart in (Do they still have that?) to make sure it was mostly completed and that was it. I think they just needed to see the compentencies in the number of tasks you had done. I still have mine!

As a footnote my examiner was a Mr Mitchell, who was the Chief Examiner Mates and Masters in Liverpool at the time, and he was a real bar steward. Sent one of my mates back to sea to do another six months seatime before he could do his orals again! He already had 22 months so ended up having 28 months seatime when he qualified.

Ian