Chief Mate's ticket....

[laura]

On the verge of my 18months sea time and now trying to persuade the company to pay for me to go back to school!

Anyone done their chief mates recently? At which college and would they recommend it or not? I've heard good stuff about South Shields?

Also is there any ship specific stuff it'd be worth getting clued up on for orals? I'm thinking I should stick my head into the onboard stability in a bit more detail as well as the cowlar/ loler/ puwer stuff and so forth? Offshore construction boat so not much 'cargo' but plenty of cranes/ winches and so forth. Is there a big focus on that side of things or not. When I took my OOW ticket, the focus was very much on it being a type of ship the examiner knew about, not being cynical about it but just thinking I should start studying and would be good to have a focus to begin with.

I don't have anyone in the company to ask as they're not from the UK and get their tickets automatically based on seatime... but anyway some top tips or advice would be appreciated!

[Pilot Chris]

Im afraid I dont know what college to recommend as its been a while for me but Warsash was reasonable especially for stability lectures (could have all changed now)

I would brush up on your sailings (Comp GC especially) Met and refresh your Stab (start reading through Type A / Type B vessels, Stockholm agreement etc)

Also remind yourself of validity of certificates, OLB stuff, crew agreements and cargo securing manuals etc.

I would say that most of the cargo stuff you can follow during the actual course but the Nav and Stab aspects you need to hit the ground running.

[YoungMariner]

I went to Warsash in 2010 for my mates and was particularly happy with the college, and returned to do my Masters there. I found it superior to South Shields in many respects, but primarily because of the difficulty at shields of holding on to lecturers. The standard of lecturers and facilities at Warsash are excellent. The results also seem to be good.

If you have the opportunity to be involved in class, flag or port state inspections/surveys then do so. Internal and external ISM audits etc. be familiar with intervals for changing wires, mainlining lifting equipment and understand your chief mates job inside out.

[laura]

Thanks for the advice, much appreciated!

Uh oh... OLB/ crew agreements? Been a while since I've been on a British flagged ship and to be fair both the OLB/ crew agreement were considered a joke/ hated by the Captains and a huge waste of time .... not helpful... I have an excellent book on Law by Malcolm Maclachlan though... time to do some reading I think onboard and on leave I think!

No problem with the nav or stability, love them, but I will get studying again!

[alistairuk]

Don't neglect MLC 2006 - you will most likely be questioned on that.

A book I found a life saver is "The Shipmasters Business Self-Examiner" - make sure you get the latest edition as it updates every couple of years.

It's 300 A4 pages in a question & answer format and covers pretty much every topic from a regulatory standpoint, giving both an answer to the question and pointing you to the relevant regulations that apply to UK ships.

Also I can't find where I put it, but you should be able to find a copy of "MCA Guide to UK Flag" (might not be it's exact title) on their web site which covers amongst many other things the OLB and Crew Agreements.

[Faust]

I have a copy of the MCA Guide to the UK Flag, PM me if you can't find it.

[Technical_Monkey]

Don't neglect MLC 2006 - you will most likely be questioned on that.

I'd pretty much assume you will be as it's only just come into force and one ship has already been detained over MLC (crew didn't have contract copies on board)...

[laura]

Don't neglect MLC 2006 - you will most likely be questioned on that.

A book I found a life saver is "The Shipmasters Business Self-Examiner" - make sure you get the latest edition as it updates

Got it, it's excellent (that's the Malcolm Maclachlan book I mentioned above), I believe there's a 2013 edition just out so over to Kelvin Hughes! Thanks though! And I'll definitely be looking up the MCA guide to the UK flag... honestly it's all the small details you miss out on when you don't sail with any guys from the UK.

MLC I'll need to get to grips with but we passed our MLC initial survey with no findings from DNV... so onto a good start at any rate!

Thanks for the advice everyone, genuinely much appreciated!

Been interrogating our Chief Mate all morning on LOLER/PUWER... think he thought he was having another audit! Good to keep the mate on his toes though, I'm sure he likes it!

[bobofinga]

Had Malcolm Maclachlan as a lecturer in Glasgow , the guy was honestly a wealth of information. Any single question regarding Law/Regulations etc he knew exactly , down to a T.

Think he left the College to go back into Brokering though?

[laura]

Yeah he was one of my lecturers too, absolutely fantastic at his subject and definitely a higher authority on anything to do with the legal side. I did hear he'd retired but not sure if that's true or not.

There were some fantastic lecturers at Glasgow while I was there... I don't know if I would to back though, it's handy for home but with all the changes I'm slightly cynical and they made a huge screw up of our lecturers/ time table right before orals- all new guys, three of whom who'd never taught before and one of whom whose english wasn't really at 'further education level'. It was bad timing to play 'guinea pig for the newbies' on a bunch of cadets stressed out to the max, weeks away from orals and most of us having just returned from sea literally days ago... mixed feelings on the place and it would be good to hear from someone who's done their mates' ticket there recently.

[YoungMariner]

I have a copy of the MCA Guide to the UK Flag, PM me if you can't find it.

Use that document with caution, it is out of date by a good few years.

[Steve]

Think he left the College to go back into Brokering though?

Malcolm retired last year.

[EH75]

Yeah he was one of my lecturers too, absolutely fantastic at his subject and definitely a higher authority on anything to do with the legal side. I did hear he'd retired but not sure if that's true or not.

There were some fantastic lecturers at Glasgow while I was there... I don't know if I would to back though, it's handy for home but with all the changes I'm slightly cynical and they made a huge screw up of our lecturers/ time table right before orals- all new guys, three of whom who'd never taught before and one of whom whose english wasn't really at 'further education level'. It was bad timing to play 'guinea pig for the newbies' on a bunch of cadets stressed out to the max, weeks away from orals and most of us having just returned from sea literally days ago... mixed feelings on the place and it would be good to hear from someone who's done their mates' ticket there recently.

Recently completed my OOW there and would absolutely not recommend it to anyone who wants to be taught properly. Just some of the things which we experienced:

- Lecturers being late or not turning up at all. This would happen several times a week. When they did bother to turn up they were often poorly prepared or would just tell us stories about their time at sea rather than teaching the subject at hand. Stories are ok on occasion but not when they are taking up a significant amount of the lecture time a few weeks before orals. Many of the lecturers clearly have little teaching experience and are consequently not particularly good at it. As has been mentioned some of them do not have a great level of English either. There is an alarmingly high level of staff turnover which results in lecturers being unfamiliar with the way the college is set up and with what they should be teaching us. This also results in the lecturers being overworked which impacts on their teaching.

- Timetables (inexplicably) being issued on a weekly basis as opposed to for the whole term. This means that from week to week you don't know what order your lessons will be in or what classroom you will be in. Said timetables were frequently issued late which caused confusion for everyone involved.

- The general structure of the course was bizarre and resulted in having multiple exams in a short space of time contributing to a lot of people failing several of them. I'm taking about having an exam (sometimes more than one) almost every day for a two to three week period.

- The above issues and many others which I'm not going to go into in detail were raised with management on multiple occasions. This usually resulted in management becoming confrontational, speaking to us like we were children and coming up with excuses. I don't recall ever being offered an apology for any of the many failings which we experienced.

Having said all that there were a few good lecturers, but these were far outweighed by the many negative issues including those outlined above. I know a number of people who are considering a merchant navy career and I have advised all of them to go elsewhere for their training. I certainly have no intention of returning when I do my mates.

[Lewis]

At Glasgow now can back up everything EH75 said. And it's only going to get worse as they renovate the site and move everyone across town.

[laura]

Yeah, it's pretty sad when I think of the few really good teachers they had. If there was any kind of guarantee that you would get certain lecturers I would consider going back, but at the moment I'm thinking South Shields/ Warsash/ Shetland... just seeing what best suits regarding dates/ courses/ reputation/ accommodation/ cost and so on.

Other question, for those who have taken their chief mates ticket, did their company pay for this? What's the usual arrangement for study leave and pay? Are you contracted in to the company and for how many years is the norm as such?

You can count the number of UK officers in my company on one hand so there's not much precedent on how they work it.. the company don't seem to have a clue or anything in place... sigh.