Marine Engineer, A Day in the Life - Pt. 1

A Day in the Life as a Watch-Standing 3rd Assistant Engineer

Would you want to miss out on hearing what a normal day is like onboard a ship from a Marine Engineer’s perspective? This is your chance to get an idea of what that sea-faring life is like out there on the open ocean. This article will cover what a day in the life is like as a 3rd Assistant Engineer both as a watch-stander and as a day worker. “What does that even mean??”, you may ask. I will go over that in the article, so continue reading!

What is Watch Standing?

I will start by explaining, in some detail, what a Watch even is. Have you ever heard the saying, “Not on MY watch!”, I’m sure you’ve come across someone saying this once or twice in your life. Most of the time, this happens in a movie or a show. What you may not have realized is that this isn’t talking about a wristwatch, but rather a ‘Watch’. A Watch, in this case, is a chunk of time where an individual shoulders the responsibility of whatever they are ‘watching’. In the case of a Marine Engineer, that would be the spaces on the ship that contain Engineering equipment. Note, the following are all common names for the Engineering spaces on a ship:

The Engineroom
The Main Engineroom - If there are multiple, it will be Main 1, Main 2…etc.
The Main Space
The Engineering Space(s)
The Auxiliary (Aux) Space. If there are multiple, it will be Aux 1, Aux 2…etc.

Now, back to Watch...For example, a 3rd Assistant Engineer (3 A/E) will stand a Watch in the engine room for a length of time that is typically 4-hours long. Ship’s can either have a ‘manned’ or an ‘unmanned’ Engine Room. If the Engine Room on a ship is ‘manned’, this means that the layout and level of technology in the engineering equipment is such that a Licensed Engineering must be always present in the Engineering Space. Since ship’s operate 24-hours a day, a Licensed Engineer must be always down there. Thus, those 24 hours are typically broken up into 4-hour blocks for each Watch. Does that make sense?

To further break it down, a 3 A/E will be assigned to each of these Watches on the 24-hour schedule as follows:

-- First 12 hours of the day

Engineer #1 – Midnight to 4AM watch (0000 – 0400 or AKA ‘Balls to 4’)
Engineer #2 – 4AM to 8AM (0400 – 0800)
Engineer #3 – 8AM to Noon (0800 – 1200)

-- Rotation Repeats for second 12 hours of the day

Engineer #1 – Noon to 4PM (1200 – 1600)
Engineer #2 – 4PM to 8PM (1600 - 2400)
Engineer #3 –8PM to Midnight (2000 - 2400)

As you can see, it turns out to be 4 hours on, followed by 8 hours off for each Watch-stander During each watch, the Engineer on Watch (EOW) is responsible for what happens in the engine room, the equipment in the engine room, and the proper operation and maintenance of equipment during their watch. Typically, there is a group of people on watch in the Engine room (a watch team) and the Engineer is also responsible for the safety other people on the team. Hence, to go back to the beginning of the article…When someone says, ‘NOT ON MY WATCH!’, this is where that phrase comes from. Note, 3rd Assistant Engineers are Licensed Engineers, but that does not mean they have the experience and expertise (although there are some 3rd A/E’s that could be Chief Engineers as far as knowledge and experience goes) to handle problems in the Engine Room on their watch. Therefore, the main job of a 3 A/E, especially a brand new 3 A/E, is to communicate issues up the chain of command either the Duty Engineer, 1st Assistant Engineer, or Chief Engineer.

Every Day, a senior Licensed Engineering Officer (typically the 1st Assistant but also sometimes the Chief Engineer) writes ‘Night Order’ that all Licensed Engineers on watch are required to acknowledge and follow during their watch. Night Orders are a set of rules to follow during watch which could include what equipment to use (such as pump #1 vs pump #2), what equipment is inoperable, what to keep an eye on, and any assigned maintenance tasks to be completed during each watch.

One more thing to add is that it is common for each watch on a particular ship to complete certain tasks. For example, the 0400 – 0800 watch is responsible for making sure the bilges are pumped clean, or the 0800 – 1200 is responsible for making sure the Chief Engineer’s Noon Report is completed by 11 AM.

Just FYI, the Noon Report takes account of all the Fuel levels and usage, Potable Water (water used for human consumption) levels and usage, and Oily Waste levels. This report is then given to the Captain so he can account for everything.

I could go on for hours if we were to get into every detail regarding watch, and perhaps I will do that in later articles. For now, this should suffice for a general overview of what it is like to be an Engineering watch-stander. Next, we will go on to happens OUTSIDE of watch hours.

What Happens During Off-Watch Hours?

Sleep

The first word that came to my mind when I thought of this was SLEEP! Sleep comes at a premium when you’re on a ship, especially after you’ve been on the watch rotation for a while and are up at odd hours of the day. Although your body does get accustomed to working these odd hours, you can still always use some more sleep. Another items to note is that your sleep is not always a continuous block of time. There are requirements for the ship to hold Fire Drills and other safety type trainings, which you must be present for. Therefore, if those training happen to fall in your 8 hours off, you’ve got to wake up, go to those meetings/trainings, then try to go back to bed and fall asleep again, which is not always easy.

Food

People have to eat right? When you’re on a ship, your food gets cooked for you (despite how cool that might sound, this is not always a good thing). The Steward’s department, and more specifically, the Chief Cook and the other cooks, work long hours in the Galley (kitchen) prepping, cooking, and cleaning dishes for the crew as their assigned job. Now, does the fact that it is their assigned job mean they are good at cooking? Not necessarily…

I’ve had a cook on one of the ships I was on who had gone to culinary school before, so his food was always of high quality. However, being a cook isn’t ALWAYS a high-paying position, so this can be where a lot of people start out their sea-going career. All it takes to be a cook on a ship is that you can fog a mirror and have taken a few cooking classes for your ‘endorsement’ on your Mariner Credential (basically your credential to be able to work on a ship). Therefore, a lot of people just recently hired off the street (meaning NO prior experience on ships) start as cooks. That has led to some bad food at times for the ship’s I’ve been on. For example, one of the cooks on a ship had just cooked breakfast and decided to serve the food out of container he HAD JUST USED to hold his bleach solution while cleaning. So, long story short, don’t put bleach on your bacon folks, it doesn’t taste that good (I now know from experience) and you probably won’t be feeling good at work if you do.

Laundry

If you’re an Engineer on a ship, you’ll be doing laundry very frequently. In fact, if you’re on a Steam Ship (ship that uses a boiler for propulsion) and in an area of the world where the water is warm, the Persian Gulf for instance, you will probably be doing laundry EVERY DAY. As an engineer, the Engine Room is your work environment. The Engine Room is usually hot, and you will be in frequent constant various oils, greases, lubricants, dust, and airborne particulates. If it is hot enough, you will sweat through your clothes within the first few minutes of work and will need to wash these sweaty, oily clothes so they are clean for the next use. Therefore, it is important to bring multiple sets of work clothes (I like boiler suits) to work so you can rotate them through the laundry. Great, now where can I do my laundry? Typically, each Deck (floor) in the House (the part of the ship where the crew lives) will have its own laundry room. These laundry rooms vary in size and can be shared by as little as 1 or 2 people or as many as 40 people, depending on how many people are on the ship. Some ships have ‘Berthings’, which is what you typically see in the movies where racks (beds) are skinny and stacked 3 high with people sleeping in them. A Berthing often serve as the living quarters on large ships with dozens of people living in each berthing. Each berthing usually has its own little laundry room, a bathroom that looks like a public bathroom with multiple stalls, and a set of showers.

Note: The word ‘Berthing’ is also used in a different context, where it basically means the ship’s location on a dock. I.E. saying a ship is ‘Berthed’ at Pier 1, means that the ship is tied up to the pier on pier 1. So you will hear the word Berthing used in multiple contexts.

Fitness

Ships are physically exhausting environments (for Engineers at least). Most ship’s will offer at least some sort of gym on board for its crewmembers. I would say that a relatively small percentage of people on board each ship will use the gym regularly since the job is so physically demanding and that resting your body in your off hours is just as important as trying to get jacked while on board, although a lot of people do go to the gym regularly.

Recap

This article is long enough from simply going over what a day in the life is like as a watch-stander. Therefore, I have decided to break up this article into many parts, which we will dive into in the coming articles. So, to recap, in this article, we merely touched the surface of what a day in the life is like for a 3rd Assistant Engineer that is on the Watch rotation. In the follow articles, we will go over what a day-worker (as opposed to a watch-stander) is and what day-workers do, what the more senior people (2nd Assistant Engineers, 1st Assistant Engineers, and Chief Engineers) do daily and what they are responsible for. If you made it this far, thanks for reading and hopefully you found this article informative.