Engine-Room Watch Duties, Terminology, and Instrumentation

What the rule requires

Who you answer to, and what you may not do alone

The engineering watch is continuously manned, built around defined stations and a defined chain of responsibility. The engineer officer of the watch — the watch engineer on a merchant vessel — has overall charge of the plant and answers to the bridge for propulsion; beneath him, watchstanders are assigned to the throttle or maneuvering station, the boilers or main engines, the generators and switchboard, and the roving patrol of the spaces. Each watchstander is responsible for a defined set of machinery: keeping it within normal operating limits, logging readings, responding to alarms, and reporting abnormalities up the chain immediately rather than acting alone on major changes NAVEDTRA 14104 §1-1.

The limits on your own authority are the part that gets tested. The EOOW ensures all orders from the officer of the deck are promptly and properly executed, and shall not permit the main engines to be turned except as authorized or ordered by the OOD NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶1. One step down, except in emergencies the engineroom auxiliary watch makes no change such as stopping, starting, or shifting a ship's service generator without first notifying the Electrician's Mate and the petty officer in charge of the watch NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶2.

Reporting runs two ways and both directions are examinable. The EOOW reports promptly to the OOD and to the engineer officer any actual or probable derangement of machinery, boilers, or auxiliaries which may affect the proper operation of the ship; he is in turn to be promptly informed of any engineering work or change in disposition of machinery that may affect the plant, endanger personnel, or requires an entry in the record of his watch . If a casualty occurs on your station, you take immediate steps to control it and promptly notify the proper authority .

Standing orders and night orders spell out the operating limits, the conditions requiring a call to the engineer, and the actions permitted without further orders . The night order book is the notebook holding standing and special instructions from the engineering officer to the night engineering officers of the watch NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Engineering Officer of the Watch ¶2. The engineering log is a legal record of important events and data concerning the machinery, and on being relieved the EOOW signs the engineering log and the engineer's bell book for that watch NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Engineering Officer of the Watch ¶1.

Reading the instruments

Reading a gauge is not the skill. Knowing the number it should read is. The watchstander must know the proper operating and the limiting or danger pressures and temperatures for his equipment, because that is what tells him a machine is not operating properly; the operating log is the hourly record of those pressures and temperatures — lube oil and boiler pressures and temperatures, pump suction and discharge pressures, and the other items needed to run the plant NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Messenger of the Watch.

Instruments indicate existing conditions inside a machine or system; by reading and interpreting them you determine whether the machinery is operating within the prescribed range, and the recorded readings feed the hourly, daily, and weekly station records used to judge plant condition over time NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 11 — Instruments. Proper operator action is possible only when the instruments are both properly calibrated and properly interpreted NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 11 — Summary. Temperature measurement in particular is a routine watch duty — steam, water, fuel, lubricating oil and other vital fluids, using both mechanical and electrical instruments, with results entered in the engineering logs NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 11 — Devices.

The instrument terms most often asked as flat definitions:

• Bourdon tube — a thin-walled tube bent into a C which tends to straighten when pressure is exerted, moving a pointer around the gauge dial NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Automatic Combustion Control (Acc).
• Calibration — comparison of a measuring instrument with a set standard of greater accuracy.
• Back pressure — pressure exerted on the exhaust side of a pump or engine.
• Pyrometer — an instrument for measuring temperatures .
• Salinometer — a hydrometer that measures the concentration of salt in a solution; salinity indicators read in micromhos, units of the water's conductivity.
• Gauge (sight) glass — a device indicating the liquid level in a tank .

Two more terms decide engine-order-telegraph questions, and they are easy to reverse. The indicator is the instrument in the engine room that receives and acknowledges engine orders. The transmitter is the instrument that sends engine orders to the engineroom and receives the acknowledgement back 46 CFR §113.35-1.

What an alarm does, and what acknowledging it does not do

Alarms must clearly distinguish among normal, alarm, and acknowledged alarm conditions, and must distinguish fire, general alarm, CO2 or clean agent, vital machinery, flooding, engineers'-assistance-needed and non-vital alarms from one another 46 CFR §62.25-20. Working through what happens when one comes in:

• Audible annunciation continues until the alarm is manually acknowledged.
• Visual annunciation continues until the alarm is manually acknowledged and the alarm condition is cleared.
• The system automatically resets to normal only after both of those have happened.
• Acknowledging one alarm must not prevent a subsequent alarm from annunciating.
• Every alarm has a manual acknowledgement device, is continuously powered, and has a means to test the audible and visual annunciators. No other means of reducing or eliminating the annunciated signal is permitted except the dimmers allowed on the navigating bridge, and those dimmers must not eliminate the visual indication.

Red rotating beacons are reserved: where required alarms in high ambient noise areas are supplemented by visual means, red beacons may be used only for general or fire alarm purposes. Flooding safety, fire, loss of power and engineers'-assistance-needed alarms extended from the machinery spaces to a remote location must not have a duty crewmember selector. Automation alarms are separate and independent of the fire detection and alarm system, the general alarm, and CO2 release alarms — and failure of an automatic control, remote control, or alarm system must itself be immediately alarmed in the machinery spaces and at the ECC.

Instrumentation listed for automated vital systems is either continuous display or demand display, located in the ECC or in the machinery spaces where no ECC is fitted; a demand display must be clearly readable and immediately available to the operator. Status of automatically or remotely controlled vital auxiliaries, power sources, switches and valves is visually indicated in the machinery spaces or the cognizant remote-control location — run, standby, off, open, closed, tripped, on.

An alarm on your panel has gone silent after you pressed the acknowledge button, but the light is still showing. Is the system back to normal?

No. Audible annunciation stops on manual acknowledgement, but the visual annunciation continues until the alarm is acknowledged and the condition is cleared, and automatic reset happens only after both . A lit visual with a silenced horn means the abnormal condition still exists. Go find it.

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Telling it apart

Every one of these is a watch stood by engine-department personnel, and exam items separate them by the plant condition the watch exists for and the station it is stood at — not by what the watchstander does with his hands, since several of them log gauge readings.

• Steaming watch — stood when the main engines are in use and the ship is underway NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Engineering Officer of the Watch ¶3.
• Cold-iron watch — set when the plant is idle and all port services come from an external source such as shore or a tender. It makes frequent inspections for fire hazards, flooding and unusual conditions, keeps unauthorized persons out, keeps the bilges reasonably free of water, and makes hourly reports on existing conditions to the OOD, with anything unusual reported at once. In dry dock it checks all sea valves after working hours to see they are secured or blanked, allows no oil pumped into the dock, and allows no weights such as fuel oil or feedwater to be shifted without permission of the engineer officer or DCA. When hot work is done in its area it ensures a fire watch is stationed, and stops the work until one is NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Cold-Iron Watch.
• Engineroom auxiliary watch — maintained underway and in port to supply light, power, steam and other services; the petty officer in charge is responsible for the ship's service generator and associated machinery, checks that operating machinery is lubricated as prescribed, and confirms all machinery not in operation is properly secured NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶2.
• Throttle watch — the throttleman operates the throttles to control the main engines . Manual skill aside, this watch demands the utmost vigilance and reliability, and a trainee stays under the supervision of an experienced throttleman until the petty officer in charge is fully satisfied he is qualified NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 2 — Training Responsibilities ¶1.
• Messenger of the watch — usually assigned as the sound-powered telephone talker during close maneuvering with other ships, entering or leaving port, and refueling or replenishing; also checks operating machinery and records temperature and pressure readings in the logs NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Messenger of the Watch.
• Upper-level watch — records periodic readings from the upper-level machinery gauges, makes valve adjustments to correct slight variations from normal and reports unusual conditions to the petty officer in charge, maintains normal water level in the deaerating tank if it is in the engine room, lights off and secures turbogenerators as ordered, and maintains adequate gland seal pressure on the turbogenerator NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Upper-Level Watch.

Working a question

A low lube-oil-pressure alarm annunciates at your station on a manned watch. The order of the steps is what the question turns on.

1. Identify the specific condition. A visual alarm indicates the equipment or system malfunction without operator intervention; where visual alarms at a control location are summarized or grouped, a display at the equipment or an appropriate control location identifies the specific alarm condition or location 46 CFR §62.25-20. A grouped annunciation at the ECC tells you which system, not which machine — you go to the equipment display for that.
2. Acknowledge. The horn stops. Nothing else changes, and a second, unrelated alarm will still annunciate behind it.
3. Verify at the machine. Read the gauge and compare it against the operating and limiting values you are required to know for that equipment NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Messenger of the Watch.
4. Act only within your authority. Take immediate steps to control the casualty NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶2, but a major change of plant lineup is reported up the chain, not made on your own initiative NAVEDTRA 14104 §1-1. If a standby auxiliary exists, it is the identical unit already connected so it may be started if the running one fails NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Engineering Officer of the Watch ¶3.
5. Report. This is an actual or probable derangement affecting proper operation of the ship, so it goes promptly to the OOD and to the engineer officer NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶1.
6. Log it, and pass it to your relief as an existing condition.
7. If the alarm will not reset with the reading restored to normal, suspect the alarm system itself — failure of an automatic control, remote control or alarm system must be immediately alarmed in the machinery spaces and at the ECC .

Where candidates lose the point

• Reading acknowledgement as correction. The distractor says silencing the alarm returns the system to the normal condition. It does not: visual annunciation persists and automatic reset waits on the condition being cleared as well as acknowledged 46 CFR §62.25-20.
• Reversing indicator and transmitter. "Transmitter" sounds like the engine-room end because that is where the acknowledgement comes from. The instrument in the engine room is the indicator 46 CFR §113.35-1.
• Answering that a watchstander corrects a major abnormality himself. Slight variations corrected by valve adjustment are within the upper-level watch's duties, with unusual conditions reported to the petty officer in charge NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Upper-Level Watch; starting, stopping or shifting a ship's service generator is not, except in an emergency NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶2.
• Notifying first and acting later on a casualty. The requirement is both, with immediate control action taken and the proper authority promptly notified — a choice offering only the report is incomplete.
• Treating the clock as the end of the watch. A watch going off duty is not relieved until the floor plates are wiped, the space is clean, all operating logs and records are correct, and the status of operating machinery, orders, special orders and non-completed orders has been given to the relief; and you never leave your station without permission from proper authority or being properly relieved.
• Assuming any machinery alarm may drive a red beacon. Red beacons are restricted to general or fire alarm purposes .

Check yourself

The OOD orders turns on the main engine. The engineer officer is ashore and the plant is lined up. On whose authority are the main engines turned?

The OOD's. The EOOW shall not permit the main engines to be turned except as authorized or ordered by the officer of the deck, and shall ensure all orders received from the OOD are promptly and properly executed NAVEDTRA 14075 Ch. 1 — Responsibilities ¶1.

Your ship is alongside a tender receiving all port services, and a welder starts hot work in your watch area with no fire watch posted. What do you do?

That is the cold-iron watch. Stop all work until a fire watch can be stationed, then carry out all pertinent orders. The cold-iron watch is required to ensure a fire watch is stationed for hot work in its area NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Cold-Iron Watch.

You are taking over the watch. Your relief-turnover is complete when the outgoing watchstander has told you the plant is normal. True or false?

False. You must be fully informed of the plant lineup, any equipment out of service, any abnormal readings or ongoing evolutions and any standing orders; you tour the space and check the actual condition of the machinery against the logs, and only then formally relieve NAVEDTRA 14104 §1-1. Nothing is assumed unchanged.

Your pressure gauge reads within limits but the machine sounds wrong. What does the instruction on instruments tell you about relying on the reading?

Proper operator action is possible only when instruments are properly calibrated and properly interpreted NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 11 — Summary. An in-limits reading from an instrument of unknown calibration is not evidence the machine is well — calibration is comparison against a standard of greater accuracy NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 13 — Automatic Combustion Control (Acc).

A fire alarm is extended from the machinery spaces to a remote location. May it be fitted with a duty crewmember selector so that only the crewmember on duty is called?

No. Flooding safety, fire, loss of power and engineers'-assistance-needed alarms extended from the machinery spaces to a remote location must not have a duty crewmember selector. Other alarms may, provided there is no off position 46 CFR §62.25-20.

You are the sound-powered telephone talker while the vessel takes fuel alongside. What watch are you standing, and what else are you responsible for?

The messenger of the watch, usually assigned as the sound-powered telephone talker during close maneuvering, entering or leaving port, and refueling or replenishing. You also check operating machinery and record temperature and pressure readings in the appropriate logs, and you repeat every message word for word as it was given to you NAVEDTRA 14104 Ch. 1 — Messenger of the Watch.

On a small commercial vessel with no engineer aboard, what does the hourly engine-room inspection cover?

Oil level, coolant level, gauge readings, leaks, unusual noises or smells, and exhaust appearance — carried out by the captain or a designated crewmember USCG Boatswain Manual Ch. 9 §9.1. Two of the six items are not read off an instrument at all.