Hey Officer Cadet, long time! I'm now at sea, working with Odfjell Tankers. I was just wondering, as a general rule of thumb, how long should a deck cadet wait until requesting bridge watchkeeping duties/observation?
I'm only into the second week of my sea time, so I'm not jonesing to leave the deck, just wondering as a guideline as I seem to have a pretty good C/O. I'm hoping to do four months straight - partially because there is a recently qualified British 3/O on 6 weeks on 6 weeks off rotation and he left just as I joined.
I was thinking of doing 3 weeks 8-8pm on deck (usual hours, although sometimes 8-5 if mooring operations during the night or less busy), 3 weeks working one of the deck watches 4-8 with a couple extra as a spare hand on deck and then perhaps asking the C/O if I can shadow the British 3/O when he's back on with O/T on deck.
I'm not sure what a requisite amount of time on deck vs bridge is. Many of my class mates have been posting pictures of their bridges on FB already, however my C/O suggested I spent a good amount of time working with the deckhands (which is what I expected). I imagine it differs from training officer to training officer and, as I'm on chemical tankers, there is a hell of a lot to learn on deck. I'm just not sure how much watchkeeping time I'm expected to have when I get back for phase 3... especially considering how relevant the watchkeeping stuff will be to my phase three studies.
I'm only into the second week of my sea time, so I'm not jonesing to leave the deck, just wondering as a guideline as I seem to have a pretty good C/O. I'm hoping to do four months straight - partially because there is a recently qualified British 3/O on 6 weeks on 6 weeks off rotation and he left just as I joined.
I was thinking of doing 3 weeks 8-8pm on deck (usual hours, although sometimes 8-5 if mooring operations during the night or less busy), 3 weeks working one of the deck watches 4-8 with a couple extra as a spare hand on deck and then perhaps asking the C/O if I can shadow the British 3/O when he's back on with O/T on deck.
I'm not sure what a requisite amount of time on deck vs bridge is. Many of my class mates have been posting pictures of their bridges on FB already, however my C/O suggested I spent a good amount of time working with the deckhands (which is what I expected). I imagine it differs from training officer to training officer and, as I'm on chemical tankers, there is a hell of a lot to learn on deck. I'm just not sure how much watchkeeping time I'm expected to have when I get back for phase 3... especially considering how relevant the watchkeeping stuff will be to my phase three studies.
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