Marine Engineer, A Day in the Life - Pt. 2

A Day in the Life as a Engineer (Part-2 – What if you’re NOT on Watch?)

In Part 1 of this article, we discussed what life is generally like onboard mostly from the perspective of a 3rd Assistant Engineer (3 A/E) Watch-stander. We scratched the surface on what life is like on the Watch-rotation, what the daily schedule is, what standing a Watch entails, and what happens outside of working hours. With that said, can we expect the people who are supposed to be paying attention to the operation of the Engineering Plant to get into big maintenance projects and other tasks requiring full attention? Of course not. This is where the ‘Day working’ side of engineering comes in. The term Day-worker is generally used to describe someone in a department that is not currently part of the Watch rotation and works during the (somewhat) traditional working hours.

Do ALL ships have Dayworkers?

The short answer to this question is YES! All ships have dayworkers, but not all ships have Watch-standers. What do I mean by this? Well, in previous articles, I had briefly gone over the fact that, depending on how the engineering plant is set up on a ship, there may or may not be a requirement for people to stand Watches.

Advances in technology over the years has allowed for the development and implementation of complex alarm and monitoring systems to be incorporated into the design of engineering plants. This allows for sensors and gauges to transmit various pressures and sensor information back to a centralized computer, which then takes that information and displays it on various computer screens and gauges. All the computers and screens that take this information and display it are typically located in what we will call the EOS (Engineer’s Operation Station). The EOS is a room that acts as both as the brains of the engine room, and an interface where Engineers can operate/control equipment, and change the plant status (turn equipment on and off, switch pumps…etc.). Take note that there are many names of the EOS and what the engineers call it just depends on the ship and the crew.

How has automation affected this?

All this automation discussed in the previous paragraph allows for a single Engineer to essentially monitor the whole plant (in theory, but not really). This eliminates the need for Engineers to stand traditional watches and, instead, have only a single ‘Duty Engineer’ that is responsible for answering all alarms and monitoring the Engine Room. However, even with all the automation in the world, a computer (at least with today’s technology) is not going to be able to conduct preventative and/or corrective maintenance on engineering equipment.

The Dayworker

Enter the Dayworker. On a typical ship, the workday starts early, around 5 AM or so, and ends late, around 8 PM, roughly. This does include coffee breaks (10-15 minutes), lunch breaks (1hr), and Overtime (3-4 hours). During this workday is when preventative and corrective maintenance is accomplished. Each Engineer, typically depending on their position, will be responsible for certain equipment. For instance, the 2nd Assistant Engineer (2 A/E) on a ship may be responsible for the Auxiliary Boiler, the Fuel System, and Oily Waste Processing. Therefore, the 2 A/E will spend the day performing monitoring, maintenance, and upkeep (daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly) checks on all the equipment associated with those systems for which the 2 A/E responsible.

Does that mean that the 2 A/E ONLY works on that equipment? Of course not. On a typical merchant ship, let’s say an oil tanker, there may only be 5 or 6 people in the ENTIRE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT. Not only does a lot of maintenance require more than 1 person for completion, but engineers also must work together to share knowledge and experience with each other to get the job done, especially if someone does not have experience with performing maintenance or operating a particular piece of equipment, is new to a ship, or just sucks at their job. The 2 A/E will work with the 1st Engineer, and the other 3rd Engineers, and vice versa, to keep the plant running as smoothly as possible. Who knows, the I’ve even seen a Chief Engineer jump in to get dirty on some major jobs as well.

The Duty

If a ship has an Unmanned engine room, do people just not pay attention to the Engineering machinery when everybody knocks-off for the day in the evening? NO! That would not only be dumb, but it would be dangerous. Therefore, when the engine department knocks off for the day, there is ALWAYS a ‘Duty Engineer’ that is responsible for making engineering rounds of the Engine room.

What is a Duty Engineer?

The Duty Engineer is essentially a Licensed Engineer who is on-call and is responsible for responding to alarms and monitoring the Engineering Spaces for anything unusual. This is like a watch in that way, but the Duty Engineer is allowed to go about their day as a Dayworker, but must take time out to make a round of the engineering spaces a few times a day to observe for anything unusual (i.e. leaks, flooding…etc.) as well as observe and take note of various pressures, temperatures, and levels of fluids with regards to both engineering machinery and tanks (fuel tanks, water tanks, oil tanks…etc.).

Now, back to the question, “What happens at the end of the day when everybody leaves?” On the main Engineering Console in the Control Room (EOS), there will be a knob that will send an alarm to the room of the Duty Engineer should any alarms go off when the Engine Room goes 'Unmanned' (there is a knob to switch it to Unmanned mode, essentially turning on the remote alarm system that will go off in the Duty Engineer's room). If an alarm does go off during the night, believe me, they will hear it in their room.

The alarm panels hooked up in the rooms are incredibly LOUD, but will go off only in the Duty Engineer’s particular room for the first 5 minutes. If the Duty Engineer does not scramble and get down to the Engine Room to silence the alarm within that time frame, the All-Call will go off. The All-Call is when the alarms in ALL the Engineer’s rooms start sounding, causing everybody to have to wake up and run down to the Engine room to see what the problem is. If you are Duty Engineer and you cause the All-Call to go off due to lack of timely response, you could possibly be fired as soon as you hit port, depending on why the All-Call went off. The purpose of the All-Call is, essentially, an automated way of calling for backup should something happen to the Duty Engineer when responding to the alarm initially.

What is so important?

Why all that urgency? Well, the two most critical situations on a ship are Fires and Flooding. Luckily, ships are required to have systems that monitor for both of those situations, which will also activate the alarm systems. However, you must remember that the ship can be in the middle of the ocean, where there is no help, and nowhere to evacuate to. Thus, it is critical to address these situations as fast as possible. I will say that, a lot of the time, alarms that go off in the middle of the night will turn out to be something that can be handled the next day or may even be ‘ghost’ or ‘nuisance’ alarms, which are alarms of an unknown cause, or that are just annoying but harmless.

How often do Engineer’s stand a Duty?

Typically, Engineers will rotate Duty Engineer responsibilities (the Chief Engineer doesn’t usually take the Duty). So, if there are 3 Licensed Engineers, each engineer will have the Duty on every 3rd Day.

Recap

In this article, we went over what a Duty Engineer is and what is required of a Duty Engineer. Remember, the duties and responsibilities of a Duty Engineer are not set in stone. Each ship and employer are different with what they require of a Duty Engineer, bust most will follow similar guidelines as they do not have that much latitude due to how heavily regulated the industry is regarding such requirements.