Seafarer- nature of job- part 1

Let me give you the list of people involved in the running of a ship. This is almost common in all types of ships, but I limit myself to Bulk carriers and General Cargo ships, as these are the types of ships I have worked the most.

Every ship consists of 3 departments- deck, engine and catering(saloon).

The Master(Captain) is the over all incharge of the ship.

The deck department is under the chief officer. The deck officers and deck crew come under the chief officer.

Similarly, the engine department is under the chief engineer. Other engineers and engine crew are under him.

The catering department had a lot of persons, but as of now it has only two.

I shall describe the nature of duties of the deck officers and crew, in detail, as I am in that department and briefly describe about others.

The Master is basically a deck officer. He has chief officer under him who has the other deck officers like second officer, third officer, deck cadet and the deck crew consisting of a bosun(head of the crew), 3 or 4 able-bodied seaman 1 or 2 ordinary seaman and 1 or 2 trainee seaman. Some old ships may have a deck fitter, who is trained in gas cutting and welding, to do minor repairs on board.

THE DECK CADET- A deck cadet is person who is carrying out mandatory seatime to achieve his/her officer of the watch certificate. Their time onboard is spent learning the operations and tasks of everyday life on a merchant vessel. He joins the ship after completion of 3 year B.Sc(Nautical Sciences) or after one year of pre-sea training. He is directly under chief officer and works as per the chief officer's instructions. The chief officer has to train the cadet to perform all the ship board activities related to deck department. He also learns navigation, watch keeping (at sea and in port), maintenance and use of various equipments in the bridge, on deck and also the fire fighting/life saving equipments.
He has to get all the tasks done as required and get signatures of chief officer and captain before he is eligible for exams. The cadets who come after per-sea training, have got to complete their record books and other assignments, get them signed and have to send them to their institute, which enables them to qualify to write the exams.

Next is the 3rd officer, which we shall see in the next part.