Second Mate
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 The 2nd mate is often the ship's navigator. |
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| Department: | Deck |
|---|---|
| Reports to: | Chief Mate, Captain |
| Watch: | 00:00 to 04:00, 12:00 to 16:00 |
| Typical Responsibilities: | Navigation Officer, GMDSS Officer, Medical Officer |
| Requirements: | At least 2nd mate's license |
A Second Mate (2/M) or Second Officer is a licensed member of the deck department of a merchant ship. The second mate is a watchstander and customarily the ship's navigator. Other duties vary, but the second mate is often the medical officer[1] and in charge of maintaining distress signalling equipment. On oil tankers, the second mate usually assists the Chief Mate with tank cleaning.
The navigator role focuses on creating the ship's passage plans. A passage plan can be summarized as a comprehensive, step by step description of how the voyage is to proceed from berth to berth, including undocking, departure, the enroute portion of a voyage, approach, and mooring at the destination.
The GMDSS officer role consists of performing tests and maintenence, and ensuring the proper log-keeping on the ship's Global Maritime Distress Safety System equipment, such as Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacons, a NAVTEX unit, INMARSAT consoles, various radios, Search and Rescue Radar Transponders, and Digital Selective Calling systems.
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[edit] Watchstanding
A second mate is almost always a watchstander. In port and at sea, the second mate is responsible to the captain for keeping the ship, its crew, and its cargo safe for eight hours each day. Traditionally, the second mate to stands a "12-4" watch: from midnight until 4am and noon until 4pm. On watch, he must enforce all applicable regulations, such as safety of life at sea and pollution regulations. In port, the watch focuses on duties such as cargo operations, fire and security watches, monitoring communications and the anchor or mooring lines.
IMO regulations require the officer be fluent in the English language. This is required for a number of reasons, such as to use charts and nautical publications, understand weather and safety messages, communicate with other ships and coast stations, and to be able to work with a multi-lingual crew.
[edit] Sea watch
At sea, the mate on watch has three fundamental duties: to navigate the ship, to safely avoid traffic, and to respond to any emergencies that may arise. Mates generally stand watch with able seamen who act as helmsman and lookout. The helmsman executes turns and the lookout reports dangers such as approaching ships. These roles are often combined to a single helmsman/lookout and, under some circumstances, can eliminated completely.[2] The ability to smartly handle a ship is key to safe watchstanding. A ship's draught, trim, speed and under-keel clearance all effect its turning circle and stopping distance. Other factors include the effects of wind and current, squat, shallow water and similar effects. Shiphandling is key when the need arises to rescue a man overboard, to anchor, or to moor the ship.
The officer must also be able to transmit and receive signals by Morse light and to use the International Code of Signals.
[edit] Navigation
- For more details on this topic, see Navigation.
Celestial, terrestrial, electronic, and coastal navigation techniques are used to fix a ship's position on a navigational chart. Accounting for effects of winds, tides, currents and estimated speed, the officer directs the helmsman to keep to track. The officer uses supplemental information from nautical publications, such as Sailing Directions, tide tables, Notices to Mariners, and radio navigational warnings to keep the ship clear of danger in transit.
Safety demands the mate be able to quickly solve steering control problems and to calibrate the system for optimum performance. Since magnetic and gyro compasses show the course to steer, the officer must be able to determine and correct for compass errors.
Weather's profound effect on ships requires the officer be able to interpret and apply meterological information from all available sources. This requires expertise in weather systems, reporting procedures and recording systems.
[edit] Traffic management
The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea are a cornerstone of safe watchkeeping. Safety requires one lives these rules and follows the principles of safe watchkeeping. An emerging focus in watchkeeping is maximizing bridge teamwork, including the practice of Bridge Resource Management.
The main purpose for Radar and Automatic Radar Plotting Aids (ARPA) on a ship's bridge are to move safely among other vessels. They help to accurately judge information about prominent objects in the vicinity, such as:
- range, bearing, course and speed
- time and distance of closest point of approach
- course and speed changes
These factors help the officer apply the COLREGS to safely maneuver in the vicinity of obstructions and other ships.
Unfortunately, radar has a number of limitations, and ARPA inherits those limitations and adds a number of its own. Factors such as rain, high seas, and dense clouds can prevent radar from detecting other vessels. Factors such as dense traffic and course and speed changes can confuse ARPA units. Finally, human errors such as inaccurate speed inputs and confusion between true and relative vectors add to the limitations of the radar/ARPA suite.
Under the best conditions, the radar operator must be able to optimize system settings and detect divergences between an ARPA system and reality. Information obtained from radar and ARPA must be treated with scrutiny: over reliance on these systems has sunk ships. The officer must understand system performance, limitations and accuracy, tracking capabilities and limitations, and processing delays, and the use of operational warnings and system tests.
[edit] Emergencies
Emergencies can happen at any time, and the officer must be equipped to safeguard passengers and crew. After a collision or a grounding, he must be able to take initial action, perform damage assessment and control, and understand the procedures for rescuing persons from the sea, assisting ships in distress, and responding to any emergency which may arise in port.
The officer must understand distress signals and know the IMO Merchant Ship Search and Rescue Manual.
[edit] Cargo handling
The ship's officer must be able to oversee the loading, stowage, securing and unloading of cargoes. He must also understand the care of cargo during the voyage.
Of particular importance is knowledge of the effect of cargo including heavy lifts on the seaworthiness and stability of the ship. The officer must also understand safe handling, stowage and securing of cargoes, including cargoes that are dangerous, hazardous or harmful.
[edit] Controlling ship operations
The officer has special responsibilities to keep the ship, the people on board and the environment safe. This includes keeping the ship seaworthy during fire and loss of stability, and providing aid and maintaining safety during man overboard, abandoning ship, and medical emergencies.
Understanding ship's stability, trim, stress, and the basics of ship's construction is a key to keeping a ship seaworthy. He must what to do in cases of flooding and loss of buoyancy. Fire is also a constant concern, and knowing the classes and chemistry of fire, fire-fighting appliances and systems prepares the officer to act fast in case of fire.
An officer must be expert in the use of survival craft and rescue boats, their launching appliances and arrangements, and their equipment including radio life-saving appliances, satellite EPIRBs, SARTs, immersion suits and thermal protective aids. In case it's necessary to abandon ship, it's important to be expert in the techniques for survival at sea techniques.
Officers are trained to perform medical tasks, and follow instructions given by radio or obtained from guides. This training includes what to do in case of common shipboard accidents and illnesses.
[edit] Licensing
[edit] United States
To become a second mate (unlimited) in the United States, one must have been a third mate and have at least 365 days of service while holding that license. Third mates who attained their licenses after the implementation of STCW 95 have passed all the examination topics required for the second mate's license, and can automatically claim the second mate's license after documenting the required service. Third mates who attained their licenses before STCW 95 must meet additional requirements.
There are two methods to attain an unlimited third mate's license in the United States: to attend a specialized training institution, or to accumulate "sea time" and take a series of traning classes and examintations.[3]
Training institutions that can lead to a third mate's license include the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy (deck curriculum), the U.S. Coast Guard Academy and U.S. Naval Academy with qualification as an underway officer in charge of a navigational watch, any of the state maritime colleges, the Great Lakes Maritime Academy, or a three-year apprentice mate training program approved by the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard.
A seaman may start the process of attaining a license after three years of service in the deck department on ocean steam or motor vessels, at least six months of which as able seaman, boatswain, or quartermaster. Then the seaman takes required training courses, and completes on-board assessments. Finally, the mariner can apply to the United States Coast Guard for a Third Mate's license.
A master of 1,600 ton vessels can, under certain circumstances, begin the application process for an unlimited third mate's license.
If approved the applicant must then successfully pass a comprehensive license examination before being issued the license. Hawsepiper is an informal maritime industry term used to refer to an officer who began his or her career as an unlicensed merchant seaman and did not attend a traditional maritime college/academy to earn the officer license.
A ship’s hawse pipe is the pipe passing through the bow section of a ship that the anchor chain passes through. Hawsepiper refers to climbing up the hawse pipe, a nautical metaphor for climbing up the ship's rank structure. Hawsepiper is considered a positive term when said respectfully. Most hawsepipers are proud of their background and use the term to describe themselves.
Several merchant seamen’s unions offer their membership the required training to help them advance. Similarly, some employers offer financial assistance to pay for the training for their employees. Otherwise, the mariner is responsible for the cost of the required training.
Since the requirements of STCW '95 have been enacted there have been complaints that the hawsepiper progression path has been made too difficult because of the cost in time and money to meet formal classroom training requirements. These critics assert that the newer requirements will eventually lead to a shortage of qualified mariners, especially in places like the United States.
[edit] The Age of Sail
In 1840's Two Years Before the Mast, the author (Richard Henry Dana, Jr.) describes the role of a second mate on an American merchant trading brig as follows:
The second mate's is proverbially a dog's berth. He is neither officer nor man. The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to reef and furl the topsails, and to put his hands into the tar and slush, with the rest. The crew call him the "sailor's waiter," as he has to furnish them with spun-yarn, marline, and all other stuffs that they need in their work, and has charge of the boatswain's locker, which includes serving-boards, marline-spikes, etc. He is expected by the captain to maintain his dignity and to enforce obedience, and still is kept at a great distance from the mate, and obliged to work with the crew. He is one to whom little is given and of whom much is required. His wages are usually double those of a common sailor, and he eats and sleeps in the cabin; but he is obliged to be on deck nearly all the time, and eats at the second table, that is, makes a meal out of what the captain and chief mate leave.
On a larger ship, the role would quite possibly have been rather different.
[edit] See also
- Navigation
- Officer of the Deck
- Merchant Navy
- Ship transport
- Nautical chart
- Nautical publications
- Passage planning
- United States Merchant Marine
[edit] References
- ^ Who does what?. Irish Maritime Development Officer. Retrieved on March 31, 2007.
- ^ Table A-II/1, Specification of minimum standard of competence for officers in charge of a navigational watch on ships of 500 gross tonnage or more. International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers. Retrieved on March 16, 2007.
- ^ [http://ecfr.gpoaccess.gov/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=ecfr;sid=3c91d4046f9587b25d46063179b29ec3;rgn=div5;view=text;node=46%3A1.0.1.2.10;idno=46;cc=ecfr#46:1.0.1.2.10.4.7.5 U.S. Code of Federal Regulations, Title 46, Part 10, Subpart 407]
- Hayler, William B. (1989). Merchant Marine Officer's Handbook. Cornell Maritime Pr. ISBN 0870333798.
| Typical ship transport occupations |  |
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| ←Junior Unlicensed |
Senior→ Licensed |
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| Deck: | Ordinary Seaman | Able Seaman | Boatswain • Carpenter | 3rd Mate • 2nd Mate • Chief Mate | Captain • Pilot |
| Engine: | Wiper • Oiler | QMED | Electrician | 3rd Engr • 2nd Engr • 1st Engr | Chief Engineer |
| Steward: | Steward's Assistant | Chief Cook | Chief Steward | Purser | |
